In a landmark judgement, the Supreme Court today ruled that sub-classification within the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SC/STs) reservation is permissible to grant separate quotas for more backwards within the categories. A seven-judge Constitution bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud gave the judgement by a 6-1 majority upholding the power of states to subclassify the reserved categories of SCs and STs into different groups based on their backwardness for extending the benefits of reservation. The Apex Court clarified that while allowing sub-classification, the state cannot earmark 100 per cent reservation for a sub-class. It also said the state has to justify the subclassification based on empirical data regarding the inadequacy of representation of the subclass.
The Bench, also comprising Justices BR Gavai, Vikram Nath, Bela M Trivedi, Pankaj Mithal, Manoj Misra, and Satish Chandra Sharma, gave the judgement overruling the 2004 EV Chinnaiah vs. State of Andhra Pradesh judgement of the Apex Court. Justice Bela Trivedi dissented from the majority. The 2004 ruling held that sub-classification of SC/STs is not permissible as SC/STs form homogenous classes.
Pronouncing its majority judgement, the bench observed that the members of SC/ST are not often able to climb up the ladder due to systemic discrimination, and Article 14 permits sub-classification of caste. The Court also said that historical evidence and social parameters clearly showed that all SC/STs do not constitute a homogenous class.
Speaking on the ‘creamy layer’ within the SCs and STs, Justice BR Gavai said the state must evolve a policy to identify the creamy layer among the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes category and exclude them from the fold of affirmative action. Justice Gavai said there are categories within the scheduled castes and tribes that have been oppressed for centuries, holding that the state governments must identify them. He also held that the criteria for identifying the creamy layer among SCs/STs should differ from those used for the Other Backward Castes (OBCs).
