Faced criticism of SC community for backing creamy layer principle: Gavai

Former Chief Justice of India BR Gavai on Saturday said he faced criticism from his own community for stating in a judgment that the creamy layer principle should be applied to reservation for the Scheduled Castes.

In Dr BR Ambedkar's view, affirmative action was like providing a bicycle to someone who is lagging behind, he said, asking whether Ambedkar thought that such a person should never give up the bicycle. Ambedkar did not think so, he claimed.

Gavai, who retired as CJI recently, was delivering a lecture on “Role of Affirmative Action in Promoting Equal Opportunity” at Mumbai University. Paying tributes to Ambedkar on his death anniversary, Gavai said the iconic leader was the architect of not only the Constitution but also of the affirmative action enshrined in it.

“Babasaheb, in so far affirmative action is concerned, was of view that it is like providing a cycle to those who are lagging behind.... In my view, that was not the vision of social and economic justice as contemplated by Babasaheb Ambedkar. He wanted to bring social and economic justice in the real sense and not in formal sense,” he said.