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This norm of non-discrimination, however, admits of just exceptions geared to equality and does not forbid those basic measures needed to abolish the gaping realities of current inequality afflicting socially and educationally backward classes' and 'the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes'. Such measures are rightly being taken by the State and are perfectly constitutional as the State of Kerala v. N. M. Thomas(1) has explained. Equality and steps towards equalisation are not idle incantation but actuality, not mere ideal but real, life. But can a university, acting within the constitutional parameters, create a new kind of discrimination viz., reservation for students of a particular university? The literal terms of Art. 14 do not tolerate it, the text of Art. 15 does not sanction it. Can we carve out a fresh ground of preference? Delhi University students, as such, are not an educationally backward class and, indeed, institution-wise segregation or reservation has no place in the scheme of Art. 15, although social and educational destitution may be endemic in some parts of the country where a college or university may be started to remedy this glaring imbalance and reservation for those alumi for higher studies may be permissible. We will explain this further but, speaking generally, unless there is vital nexus with equal opportunity, broad validation of university-based reservation cannot be built on the vague ground that all other universities are practising it-a fact not fully proved before us either. Universality of illegality, even if the artists of discrimination are universities, cannot convert such praxis into constitutionality. Nor, indeed, can the painful circumstance that a batch of medical graduates demonstratively fasted in front of the Health Minister's house, ipso facto, legalise reservation of seats in their favour. Shri Shanti Bhushan vividly described his role as Law Minister in meeting the student satyagrahis who were honestly hungry for post- graduate seats and the crisis which stampeded government to intervene and make the University revise its reservation upward to save the lives of the 'fasters'. We have sympathy for students, especially for those who sacrifice their comforts to claim an opportunity to take post-graduate medical degrees. We even feel that the student community often resorts to direct action of the satyagraha model when the pachydermic disposition of authorities drives them to such drastic heroics. But what if non-Delhi students start a rival starvation exercise ? That will lead to testing the rule of law on the immolative or masochist capabilities of affected groups and not on the Articles of the Constitutional or provisions of the legislation. Protest fasting, a versatile weapon in our cultural armoury, is meant to sensitize or conscientize the soul of the Administration when it is too paper-logged or callous to look at human problems from the angle of human justice. Beyond that, this great Gandhian technique cannot be blunted by promiscuous use, so long as democratic mechanisms are alive and not impervious to legitimate grievances and can be sparked into action not merely by sensational, though sincere, tactics like fasting unto death. While recognising, even reverencing, the role of soul force in quickening the callous conscience of authorities to grave injury and need for urgent remedy, we cannot uphold the Delhi University's 'reservation' strategy merely because Government was faced with student 'fasts' and ministers desired a compromise formula and the University bodies simply said 'Amen'. The constitutionality of institutional reservation must be founded on facts of educational life and the social dynamics of equal opportunity Political panic does not ipso facto, make constitutional logic.

Thus the constitutional principles and limitations are clear and the norms are belighted by the precedents but their application to the specific situation is an exacting task. The burden, when protective discrimination promotional of equalisation is pleaded, is on the party who seeks to justify the ex facie deviation from equality. What has the Delhi University stated here? The learned Attorney General frankly admitted that student agitation, without more, could not validate 'reservation' and that excessive reservation was an obvious inequality. Nor, indeed, is it a good plea that illegal reservation is being practised by other universities and the Delhi University is forced to act illegally in self-defence. Lawlessness, under our system, is corrected by the law, not by counter-lawlessness. So it is strange for the Delhi University to say our disorderly behaviour is orderly because other universities behave similarly. Once these misguided defences of direct action by students or reprisals against other universities are brushed aside, we come to grips with the real issues. Is there circumstantial justification for constitutionalising the rservation strategy, especially of 70% plus?