The Role of Social Science Evidence in Adjudging the Constitutionality of Reservations

Writ petitions that challenge the governments’ decisions at dishing out reservation seats and their quantum has been a concern for constitutionality as early as 1963. In matters such as the quantum of reservations, the crucial implications are with regards to proportionality. This proportionality is important so as to judicially scrutinize whether reservations suffer from overbreadth resulting in reverse discrimination- this scrutiny is undoubtedly contingent on empirical data, that governments must conduct and review from time to time, on not only the population of the reserved classes but also their backwardness. It is such data which becomes incumbent to decide the constitutionality aiding from empirical statistics on backwardness. It is such empirical data which is termed here as “social science” evidence. This paper seeks at documenting the role of social science evidence in adjudging the quantum of reservations vis-a-vis their constitutionality in India. Incidentally, the paper sets out to identify the manner in which social science evidence has informed the judiciary in bridging gaps between the social realities of ordinary citizens and the Courts of this land, and its resultant role in transformative constitutionalism.