The Supreme Court, on Friday, February 14, observed that it was “handicapped” on the question of reservations in the Bengaluru Advocates Association elections, citing that it will not permit bar members to be divided on caste lines or politicise the Association.
A bench of Justices Surya Kanth and N Kotiswar Singh was hearing a petition filed by Advocates for Social Justice, an NGO, seeking reservations in the Association for advocates from Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes communities. "It will open a Pandora's box. Without any empirical data, it can't be done. Reserving seats for women was a different thing. We will not permit bar members to be divided on caste lines or let the issues to be politicised," the bench said.
On January 24, the Supreme Court had passed an order based on Article 142 of the Constitution, reserving the post of treasurer in the Bengaluru Advocates Association for women advocates.
Senior advocate Madhavi Divan, who represented the NGO, told the SC that in the past 50 years, not a single person from an SC, ST, or OBC community has been elected to the Association. She said that affirmative action policies were in place in advocates’ associations in other countries.
The SC said that appropriate action could be taken with proper data, but in the absence of any data on the subject, the court was “handicapped”. The court then clubbed the petition with a batch of other petitions seeking reforms to strengthen bar associations, which is due to be heard on February 17.