New Delhi: The Supreme Court is likely to decide the Centre's plea to vacate the stay on the implementation of OBC quota in Central educational institutions on Wednesday.

The court indicated this while hearing the Centre's argument in favour of its quota policy on Tuesday. In its last-ditch effort to get the freeze on OBC quota lifted, the Union Government told the court on Tuesday that it was willing to keep the 'Creamy Layer' out of the 27 per cent quota for OBCs in elite educational institutions.

"If the court feels that the Creamy Layer be excluded and says so, the Centre will obey," Solicitor General GE Vahanvati said before a five-judge Constitution Bench, headed by Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan.

Vahanvati's submission came during the hearing of the Centre's application seeking the vacation of the March 29 interim order staying the implementation of the quota. The comedown by the Centre is seen as a move aimed at getting the nod of the Apex Court for the early implementation of its quota policy.

The Creamy Layer aspect is a politically sensitive issue and parties across the spectrum have opposed exclusion of the well to do from the reservation benefit.

The anti-quota petitioners opposed the Centre's application, contending that it was rushing through with the implementation of the law without addressing the issue of identifying OBCs and excluding the 'Creamy Layer' among them.

At the outset, the Bench questioned the contentions raised by the Centre, asking what was new in its grounds for seeking a vacation of the stay. "What is the changed circumstance? What is new you are arguing?" asked the Bench, which also comprises Justices Arijit Pasayat, CK Thakker, RV Raveendran and Dalveer Bhandari.

The Centre had referred to the recent order of the court in a matter related to quota in Tamil Nadu, where the state government was allowed to provide 69 per cent reservation on the assurance that additional seats would be created to protect the general category.

It had said that this fact was discovered after the March 29 order. "That is an unusual ground. You are not aware that the order was passed 14 years ago and it has been extended every consecutive year," the Bench observed.

The Bench reminded the Solicitor General that "whatever contentions the Centre has raised in the application were argued earlier also." Vahanvati said seats had been increased in the educational institutions and that the general category was not going to be affected and the quota of 27 per cent could be staggered over three years.

Senior advocates KK Venugopal, Harish Salve, Rajeev Dhavan, PP Rao, Mukul Rohatgi and MM Lahoty, appearing for the anti-quota petitioners, had a common point that the Centre was rushing through with the implementation of the law without having the data in place and without "excluding the Creamy Layer among the OBCs."

"The government has not done its job," they said, adding that in the three months after the March 29 order, it has failed to address these issues. It is time that the main petitions challenging the validity of the controversial Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admissions) Act 2006 should be heard instead of going into the application for vacating the stay, they said.

The petitioners said if the stay was vacated, the Centre would implement the quota not only in Central educational institutions but also in institutions that are directly or indirectly aided by it.