Government to take call on SC/ST creamy layer, says Supreme Court

Justice Gavai was part of the seven-judge bench that passed the landmark order last August that permitted sub-categorisation of castes within the SC community.

The Supreme Court has said it is for the legislature and government to take a call on whether the “creamy layer” of Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes’ (STs) beneficiaries of reservation in education and public service must be excluded from quota benefits.

“We have given our view that taking into consideration the past 75 years, such persons who have already availed benefits and are in a position to compete with others, should be excluded from reservation. But it is a call to be taken by the executive and the legislature,” Justice Gavai observed as quoted by The Hindu.

The top court refused to entertain a plea seeking the exclusion of children of Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and Indian Police Service (IPS) officers from Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) reservation benefits in Madhya Pradesh. The petitioner, Santosh Malviya, approached the Supreme Court after the Madhya Pradesh high court refused to entertain his plea, according to reports.

Advocate Siddharth Gupta, appearing for the petitioner, told a bench of Justices B R Gavai and Augustine George Masih that all govt departments/PSUs must be directed to stop reservation benefits being extended to the creamy layer within SCs/STs, according to a report by Times of India.

The SC bench, however, said it had passed the order but it was now for legislature and executive to take a decision.

“We have given our view that taking into consideration the experience of the past 75 years, such persons who have already availed benefits and are in a position to compete with others, should be excluded from reservation. But it is a call to be taken by executive and legislature,” the bench said. Indicating the court’s limitation, the bench said that the attorney general had a day earlier argued that the court should not interfere in policy decisions.

Gavai, who was part of the seven-judge bench that passed the landmark order in August that permitted sub-categorisation of castes within the SC community, had asked states to devise a framework to identify and exclude creamy layer among SCs/STs from availing reservation benefits. He had said that a mechanism especially suited for SCs/STs was needed, as the OBC creamy layer principle could not be applied to them.

“The state must evolve a policy for identifying the creamy layer even from SCs and STs so as to exclude them from the benefit of affirmative action. Only this and this alone can achieve the real equality enshrined under the Constitution,” he had said.