Question

Is reservation of seats in India against the right to equality guaranteed by the constitution?
Points for the debate. The answer should be 'FOR' the motion.

PLEASE ANSWER IT FAST!!
ITS EXTREMELY URGENTTT!!!

Answer 1

Reservation
Reservation is a policy designed to redress past discrimination against lower classes and minority groups through measures to improve their economic and educational opportunities. Reservation is an attempt to promote equal opportunity. It is often instituted in government and educational settings to ensure that minority groups within a society are included in all programs. The justification for reservation is to compensate for past discrimination, persecution or exploitation by the ruling class of a culture or to address existing discrimination. The principle of affirmative action is to promote social equality through the preferential treatment of socioeconomically disadvantaged people. More over the basic aim of reservation is to create social equality. Social equality is a social state of affairs in which all people within a specific society or isolated group have the same status in a certain respect. At the very least, social equality includes equal rights under the law, such as security, voting rights, freedom of speech and assembly, and the extent of property rights. However, it also includes access to education, health care and other social securities. It also includes equal opportunities and obligations, and so involves the whole society. Social equality refers to social, rather than economic, or income equality.[13] 

Answer 2

Reservation is part of the affirmative action which is again mentioned in the Constitution in the Part III - Fundamental Rights in Art. 15(3), 15(4), 16(3), 16(4), 16(4A) and fits in the broader purview of the  objectives of social justice and socio-economic democracy. It can also be derived from Directive Principles in their broader understanding.
 
It would be counterfactual and counterproductive to pit one FR against the other as both address particular concerns of society and can be taken in different contexts. What I would suggest is we must go for the doctrine of Harmonious Construction. Therefore the debate could be steered towards what is the vision of the Constitution and where are we headed vis-a-vis reservations.
 
Although, Art.14 guarantees Right to Equality before law, we cannot deny that reservation has also been enshrined as a proviso. Having said that, the forefathers of our Constitution never envisioned reservation to be deep-rooted in our democracy and be a perpetuity. This can be ascertained from the fact that all the above-mentioned articles are provisos while Article 14 is a standalone. Moreover, the reservation of seats in Parliament and State Legislative Assemblies were made for a decade post adoption of the Constitution in 1950 and not indefinitely. It is our successive governments who have been amending the Constitution to extend it every decade - the latest being the 95th Amendment Act which has pushed the reservations till 2020.
 
The sustained continuance of reservation points at one or more of these:
1) inability to lift the backward classes, SCs, STs, etc. from their predicament and assimilate them into the mainstream,
2) competitive vote-bank politics being played in the name of caste,
3) limited understanding of the goals of the Constitution,
4) lack of a vision of a post-reservation India,
5) unwillingness or inability to address the root of the problem.
 
The moot point is, a society which aspires for equality cannot have reservations in perpetuity. A systematic and methodical way of successive elimination of well-to-do beneficiaries of affirmative action as we move along is the way forward. Socio-economic justice is one of our ideals but at the same time equitable justice is also one of our ideals. A team is as strong as the weakest link which means it is incumbent upon us to uplift the bottom-of-the-pyramid. Therefore, looking forward, our policies must be directed at shoring up the baselines and not pushing more categories into reservation.