Ninety-Third Amendment Act, 2005

• Empowered the state to make special provisions for the socially and educationally backward classes or the Scheduled Castes or the Scheduled Tribes in educational institutions including private educational institutions (whether aided or unaided by the state),except the minority educational institutions.

Background

• This amendment added a provision in Article15(c) (mentioned above).In order to give effect to this provision, the Centre enacted the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006, providing a quota of 27% for candidates belonging to the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in all central higher educational institutions including the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs).
• In April 2008, the Supreme Court upheld the validity of both, the Amendment Act and the OBC Quota Act. But the Court directed the central government to exclude the ‘creamy layer’ (advanced sections) among the OBCs while implementing the law.

 Reservation for EWSs in Educational Institutions   (103rd Amendment Act of 2019).

• It added a new provision to Article 15 i.e. The state is empowered to make any special provision for the advancement of any economically weaker sections of citizens. Further, the state is allowed to make a provision for the reservation of up to 10% of seats for such sections in admission to educational institutions including private educational institutions, whether aided or unaided by the state, except the minority educational institutions. This reservation of up to 10% would be in addition to the existing reservations. For this purpose, the economically weaker sections would be notified by the state from time to time on the basis of family income and other indicators of economic disadvantage.
• In order to give effect to this provision, the central government issued an order (in 2019) providing 10% reservation to the Economically Weaker Sections (EWSs) in admission to educational institutions.