'Creamy Layer' Must Be Excluded From Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes For Reservations : Supreme Court

In the judgment allowing sub-classification of Scheduled Castes, the Supreme Court expressed the need to exclude the 'creamy layer' among the Scheduled Castes from the reservation benefits meant for the SC categories.At present, the concept of 'creamy layer' is applicable only to the reservation for Other Backward Classes.The judgment was delivered by a bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justices BR Gavai, Vikram Nath, Bela Trivedi, Pankaj Mithal,Satish Chandra Sharma and Manoj Misra. Six judges upheld sub-classification, with Justice Trivedi dissenting. Four out of the six judges, who supported sub-classification, expressly stated in their judgments that creamy layer exclusion must be applied to SCs.Justice BR Gavai, in his judgment, said, "The State must evolve a policy for identifying the creamy layer even from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes so as to 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."Justice Gavai stated that the children of an SC category person who has got the benefit of reservation cannot be put on the same pedestal as the children of a person who has not availed of reservation.He opined that the yardsticks for identifying creamy layers among the SCs/STs must be different from that of the OBCs.Justice Vikram Nath also endorsed Justice Gavai's view, saying, that the creamy layer principle as applicable to OBCs also applies to the SCs.Justice Pankaj Mithal stated that reservation has to be only limited to the first generation. If any member of the first generation has reached a higher status through reservation, then the 2nd generation should not be entitled to reservation, Justice Mithal stated.Justice Satish Chandra Sharma agreed with the view of Justice Gavai and said that the issue of identification of creamy layer qua SC/STs ought to become a constitutional imperative for the State.Important quotes from the judgment on creamy layer issue.Justice Gavai stated that it was appropriate to consider the issue of creamy layer since the Court is dealing with the with the question about equality among the group of unequals.He observed :"The question that will have to be posed is, whether equal treatment to unequals in the category of Scheduled Castes would advance the constitutional objective of equality or would thwart it? Can a child of IAS/IPS or Civil Service Officers be equated with a child of a disadvantaged member belonging to Scheduled Castes, studying in a Gram Panchayat/Zilla Parishad school in a village?""The education facilities and the other facilities that would be available to a child of a parent of the first category would be much higher, maybe the facilities for additional coaching would also be available; the atmosphere in the house will be far superior and conducive for educational upliftment""Per contra, the child of parent of the second category would be having only the bare minimum education; the facilities of coaching, etc., would be totally unavailable to him. He will be living in the company of his parents who do not have education and have not even been in a position to guide such a child""It is also commonly known that disparities and social discrimination, which is highly prevalent in the rural areas, start diminishing when one travels to the urban and metropolitan areas. 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.""Putting the children of the parents from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes 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.""However, I may observe that taking into consideration that the Constitution itself recognizes the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes to be the most backward section of the society, the parameters for exclusion from affirmative action of the person belonging to this category may not be the same that is applicable to the other classes. If a person from such a category, by bagging the benefit of reservation achieved a position of a peon or maybe a sweeper, he would continue to belong to a socially, economically and educationally backward class. At the same time, the people from this category, who after having availed the benefits of reservation have reached the high echelons in life cannot be considered to be socially, economically and educationally backward so as to continue availing the benefit of affirmative action. They have already reached a stage where on their own accord they should walk out of the special provisions and...

'Creamy Layer' Must Be Excluded From Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes For Reservations : Supreme Court

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The Court said that a policy must be evolved by the State to identify creamy layer among the SCs/STs.

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