The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam moved the Madras High Court on Friday, challenging a constitutional amendment granting 10% reservation in government jobs and education institutions to economically weak sections of the upper castes, ANI reported. The party’s organising secretary RS Bharathi filed the petition.

Reservation was not a poverty alleviation programme, instead it was meant to uplift communities that have not had access to education or employment for years, The Times of India reported, quoting from the petition. Bharathi urged the court to pass an interim injunction against the amendment.

Her counsel, P Wilson, said the reservation in Tamil Nadu was 69%. “However, the recent amendments enable reservation to go up to 79% and the same was unconstitutional,” Wilson added.

The Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Fourth Amendment) Bill, 2019, was passed 323-3 in the Lok Sabha on January 8 and was approved the following day in the Rajya Sabha.

DMK chief MK Stalin urged the Tamil Nadu government on January 8 to adopt a resolution against the Centre on the matter in the state Assembly. “The central government has started a disastrous game by introducing this bill,” he had said. “It is not in tune with constitutional provisions on reservation.”

Youth for Equality, an anti-reservation organisation, moved the Supreme Court against the bill a day after Parliament passed it. The organisation, in its petition, said the amendment violates the basic features of the Constitution and economic criterion cannot be the sole basis for reservation.