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Supreme Court to hear plea seeking exclusion of creamy layer from SC/ST quota

A bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi issued notice to the Centre on the plea by Advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay.

3 min readNew DelhiJan 13, 2026 05:40 AM IST

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The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a plea seeking exclusion of creamy layer from reservations for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

A bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi issued notice to the Centre on the plea by Advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay.

The court tagged it with a pending petition seeking priority reservation for the economically weaker sections within categories entitled to reservation in government employment and education.

Upadhyay said that the “the injury caused to the public” by the “non-implementation of creamy layer” principle “is very large as” it “has social, economic, political, cultural and national impact and brazenly offends Articles 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 38, 41, 46, 51-A(j), and 335. Therefore, it poses a threat to constitutional goals of social, economic, political justice and equal opportunity.”

The plea said that “reservation was never intended to be a permanent phenomenon; rather, it was always a measure for Socio-Economic Justice” but “was envisaged by the Constitution framers that Reservation needs to be given only to those who need it, and granting it blanketly and excessively would be detrimental to the Nation.”

Contending that it was “created to remedy historical backwardness,” he said, “the Constituent Assembly repeatedly stressed that the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes had faced a level of historical oppression far deeper and more persistent than that faced by any other group. Their situation was so serious that ordinary laws were not enough to fix it. Many key members of the Assembly spoke clearly and firmly in support of the backward classes, showing their commitment to providing them protection & opportunities through the Constitution.”

It added that “the framers were unanimous that reservations were never meant to be permanent, absolute, or beyond periodic review. Any interpretation that treats reservation benefits as fixed or uniform goes against this basic expectation. The Constituent Assembly clearly understood reservations as a provisional tool to eliminate backwardness, to be continued only for as long as the conditions of disadvantage required it. They were designed to end backwardness, not to become a permanent feature, and their duration was always meant to be reviewed and extended only when necessary.”

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The plea contended that “excessive reservation without implementing Creamy Layer System with stringent measures, is violative of the Constitutional Spirit of Justice, Equity and Good Conscience.”

Upadhayay said that “presently, reservations being given without Periodic Assessments is antithetical to the constitutional goal of socio-economic justice and equal opportunity.”

In its judgment allowing sub-classification of scheduled castes for the purpose of reservation, an SC constitution bench had said that creamy layer principle should be extended to scheduled caste reservation.