Liberalization hasn't led to education for deprived sections - Apex court

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has said the notion that liberalization
and free-market economy in India would generate wealth which the
government would use for providing higher education to deprived
sections of the society has turned out to be "false and a mirage".

"For the past two decades, this country has been in the throes of
early 'amor' with the false but mesmerizing promises of laissez faire,
free markets, liberalization, privatization and globalization," said a
bench of Justice B. Sudershan Reddy and Justice S.S. Nijjar.

The observation came in a recent judgment, made available on Tuesday,
holding as "ultra vires" (beyond its powers) the Delhi government
notification permitting the Army College of Medical Science in Delhi
cantonment to enroll only the wards of serving and retired army
personnel and that of war widows.

Speaking for the bench, Justice Reddy said, "The state, in the throes
of that false passion, believed that it would lead to generation of
such wealth, that it could then take on the task of providing access
to higher education to hitherto excluded classes and groups."

"However, that promise has turned out to be false and a mirage. It is
now apparent to the state that denial of access to higher education,
to socially and educationally backward classes, and Scheduled Castes
and Scheduled Tribes, would potentially be dangerous to the ship of
our nation, the Constitution."

The court held that there could not be any executive (government)
order that is contrary to the statutory provisions and the mandate of
the constitution of providing reservation to socially and economically
weaker sections of the society.

"The disadvantaged (sections) are obviously brutalized and
dehumanized, by the very structure in which they are compelled to live
in," the judgment read.

It further cautioned that, "If the (disadvantaged) masses of India
were to start believing, which thankfully they do not, and hopefully
will not in the future, that their dehumanized condition is immutable,
then also the ship of our constitution would have lost its way."

Apprehending a violent turn that this brutalized and dehumanized
section of the society may take, the judgment said, "If they conclude
that dehumanization is the only normal order based on what some keep
propagating, and then further conclude that the only way out for them
would be to violently revolt and oppress the oppressor, the (Indian)
ship would sink." IANS