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SC seeks Centre’s report on action taken on its SC/ST sub-classification verdict
Justice B R Gavai (since retired), in his concurring judgment, said he is “of the view that the State must evolve a policy for identifying the creamy layer even from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes so as exclude them from the benefit of affirmative action”.
On Tuesday, the petitioners told the bench that after the 2024 judgment, what remained was the execution by the government. The court then decided to seek the action-taken report.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought a report from the Centre on what action had been taken in pursuance of its Constitution bench judgment, which allowed sub-classification of Scheduled Castes for the purpose of reservation and said that creamy layer principle be extended to the category.
“Let the Union of India file an affidavit along with Action Taken Report pursuant to the Constitution Bench judgment of this court in The State of Punjab & Others vs Davinder Singh & Others,” ordered a bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and N V Anjaria.
The direction came on an application seeking a direction to the Centre “to comply with the judgment…dated 01.08.2024, wherein it has been held that sub-classification within the Scheduled Castes for equitable distribution of reservation is constitutionally permissible and necessary to achieve substantive equality”
The application was filed by O P Shukla, president, National Coordination Committee for Revision of Reservation Policy, through Advocate Purushottam Sharma Tripathi.
It was filed in pending petitions by Shukla and ‘Samta Andolan Samiti’, an association representing “SCs/STs who have been deprived of their rightful entitlement to reservation by the prosperous elite within these groups”, seeking direction that “the creamy layer be excluded from the” reservation for “SCs/STs.
On Tuesday, the petitioners told the bench that after the 2024 judgment, what remained was the execution by the government. The court then decided to seek the action-taken report.
A seven-judge Constitution bench of the SC presided by then Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud had in a 6:1 majority ruling on August 1, 2024, overruled the SC’s 2004 judgment in E V Chinnaiah vs State of Andhra Pradesh, which had held that SCs constituted a homogeneous group and cannot be sub-categorised.
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Allowing the sub-classification, the majority ruling said “empirical evidence indicates that there is inequality even within the Scheduled Castes. The Scheduled Castes are not a homogeneous integrated class”.
Justice Bela M Trivedi (since retired) was the lone dissenter who, in her verdict, said Scheduled Castes constituted a homogeneous class and “cannot be tinkered with by the states”.
It rejected the argument that once enumerated in the Presidential List under Article 341 of the Constitution, the Scheduled Castes constitute a homogeneous class, which is incapable of further subdivision/sub-classification and that any attempt to sub-categorise them would amount to tinkering with the Presidential List, in violation of Article 341 (2) and Article 14 of the Constitution.
The majority also backed the exclusion of creamy layer from SCs and STs.
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Justice B R Gavai (since retired), in his concurring judgment, said he is “of the view that the State must evolve a policy for identifying the creamy layer even from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes so as exclude them from the benefit of affirmative action. In my view, only this and this alone can achieve the real equality as enshrined under the Constitution”.
On September 24, 2024, the SC also dismissed review petitions challenging the seven-judge bench order.
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