PIL in SC seeks creamy layer concept in SC/ST reservation

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 19

Should the well-off among Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes be excluded from the benefits of reservation in government jobs and education?

A PIL filed by some members of the SC/ST community has sought introduction of the creamy layer concept in SC/ST reservation to keep the rich among them out to ensure that the benefits go to the poor and the needy.

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No class or caste has remained homogeneously backward through the course of time, and hence reservation benefits should not be made available to the creamy layer, they contended.

 Currently, the creamy layer concept is applicable only in Other Backward Classes (OBC) reservation as candidates above a particular income level become disentitled to avail of quota benefits.

The petitioners sought “instructions and guidelines prescribing parameters and criteria for excluding the creamy layer from SCs and STs, in pari materia to OBC.”

 Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan told a Bench headed by CJI Dipak Misra that it was an important issue which needed to be considered and settled.

 The Bench directed that a copy of the PIL be served to enable the Centre to spell out its stand and listed it for hearing after two weeks.

 The petitioners contended that the affluent sections managed to take away the maximum benefit, leaving 95 per cent of them in disadvantageous positions.