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NEW DELHI: Less than 24 hours after Parliament passed the constitutional amendment bill to provide 10% quota to the poor among the forwards, NGO Youth for Equality ’ rushed to the Supreme Court on Thursday with a PIL seeking quashing of the legislation alleging that it violated the basic structure of the Constitution.Within six hours of YFE lawyer Gopal Shankaranarayanan informing the media about the filing of the petition challenging the Constitutional amendment, the NGO’s president, Dr Kaushal Kant Mishra, who is also a petitioner, rushed to journalists making an about turn and informing that “in principle, it (quota for poor) is a welcome step”.YFE in its petition quoted many paragraphs from the Indra Sawhney judgment of 1992 to buttress its plea that economic backwardness could not be a ground for granting reservations. “The amendment completely violates the constitutional norm that economic criterion cannot be the only basis of reservation as has been laid down by the 9-judge bench of SC in Indra Sawhney, without removing the basis of the judgment. Such an amendment, hence, is vulnerable and ought to be struck down as it merely negates a binding judgement,” it said.Referring to the 50% ceiling on reservation put by the 9-judge SC bench, YFE said this cap on quota percentage “has been engrafted as a part of the basic structure of the Constitution’s “equality code”. Claiming to be a body of students, teachers and professionals which has moved the apex court on several occasions, the NGO said “by way of present amendments, the exclusion of OBCs and SCs/STs from the scope of economic reservation implies that only those who are poor from the general categories would avail the benefit of quotas”.“Just as with women and persons with disabilities, the economic criterion ought to have been applied horizontally as economic backwardness found across all castes and groups,” the YFE said in its petition filed in the court on Thursday. But, within hours, the NGO said: “In principle, it is a welcome step. The deprivation, not the caste, has been made the basis of protective discrimination.”However, YFE raised questions about 10% quota breaching the 50% ceiling imposed by SC, timing of the step possibly for electoral gains and lack of employment opportunities - reasons akin to those put political parties which opposed the government decision to bring in 10% quota by raising similar objections but at the time of voting in Parliament, supporting the constitutional amendment.The YFE demanded that the 27% OBC reservation also must be brought under the economic criterion test and not according to caste consideration.