The story so far: On December 6, the Lok Sabha passed the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation (Amendment) Bill, 2023 amending the reservation quotas in Jammu & Kashmir. There are two more Bills on the dock which alter the list of communities under Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBC), expanding the quotas to many more communities.
The first piece of legislation — Jammu and Kashmir Reservation (Amendment) Bill, 2023 — seeks to amend the term ‘weak and under-privileged classes (social castes)’ in the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation Act, 2004 to ‘Other Backward Classes’, expanding the reservation to many more communities. This was recommended by the J&K Socially Educationally Backward Classes Commission (SEBCC)
The second Bill — The Constitution (Jammu and Kashmir) Scheduled Tribes Order (Amendment) Bill, 2023 — is a constitutional amendment which seeks to revise the list of Scheduled Tribes in J&K to include the Pahari community.
