Tamil Nadu Timeline

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69% reservation Act placed in the Ninth Schedule

· Chennai

Through the 76th Amendment, the Constitution's Ninth Schedule came to include Tamil Nadu's 1993 law that kept reservation at 69%.

The Supreme Court's Indra Sawhney ruling of 1992 set a 50 percent limit on reservations, exposing Tamil Nadu's 69 percent quota to court challenges. The state assembly responded in 1993 by passing its Tamil Nadu Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Reservation of Seats in Educational Institutions and of Appointments or Posts in the Services under the State) Bill, which became Act 45 of 1994. Acting on a request from the Jayalalithaa government, Parliament added the Act to the Ninth Schedule by means of the Seventy-sixth Amendment in 1994, so that it could not be struck down for breaching fundamental rights. Litigation over whether it is valid has gone on in the Supreme Court.

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