SC seeks Centre’s stand on exclusion of creamy layer from SC/ST reservation benefits
Those holding senior government or constitutional positions should not continue to receive reservation benefits as it undermined the purpose of reservation, the petitioners contended
The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Centre to spell out its stand on excluding the well-off among Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes from reservation benefits in government employment and admission to government-run educational institutions.
While hearing petitions filed by OP Shukla and Samta Andolan Samiti seeking enforcement of Supreme Court’s August 1, 2024 on reservation, a three-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant asked the Centre to file its response to the petitions.
The top court — which has already issued notices to the Centre on these petitions — said the matter will be taken up for hearing after sometime.
Those holding senior government or constitutional positions should not continue to receive reservation benefits as it undermined the purpose of reservation, the petitioners contended.
In its August 1, 2024 verdict, a seven-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court had said the State must evolve a policy for identifying the creamy layer from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes so as exclude them from the benefit of reservation.
Currently, creamy layer criteria are applicable only to Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in order to exclude the better offs among them from quota benefits, in terms of the 1992 nine-judge Constitution Bench verdict of the Supreme Court in the Indira Sawhney case.
However, four of the six judges on the seven-judge bench led by CJI DY Chandrachud (since retired) — which by ruled by a 6:1 majority that sub-classification in Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes was permissible for the purpose of reservation – had said the creamy layer among the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes should be identified and excluded from reservation.
“In my view, only this and this alone can achieve the real equality as enshrined under the Constitution,” wrote Justice BR Gavai (since retired) in his verdict.
Justice Gavai said that the criteria for exclusion of the creamy layer from the SCs and STs for the purpose of affirmative action could be different from those applicable to the OBCs.
“I have no hesitation to hold that putting a child studying in St Paul’s High School and St Stephen’s College and a child studying in a small village in the backward and remote area of the country in the same bracket would obliviate the equality principle enshrined in the Constitution,” Justice Gavai had written.
He said that “putting the children of the parents from the SCs and STs who on account of benefit of reservation have reached a high position and ceased to be socially, economically and educationally backward and the children of parents doing manual work in the villages in the same category would defeat the constitutional mandate.”
The other three judges who favoured extending the concept of creamy layer to SC/ST reservation were — Justice Vikkram Nath, Justice Pankaj Mithal and Justice SC Sharma.
