The Supreme Court has now permitted states to create sub-categories within Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) for the purpose of distributing quotas more equitably among the more disadvantaged sub-groups. This important ruling, issued by a seven-judge bench led by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, overturns a 2004 judgment that had previously ruled such sub-classifications as unconstitutional.
In a landmark 6-1 majority ruling Thursday, a seven-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court held that Scheduled Castes do not constitute a socially homogeneous class and can be sub-classified by States for the purpose of providing reservation to the less privileged among them.
It said there must be a “rational principle” for such differentiation and the principle must have “a nexus with the purpose of sub-classification”. Four of the majority ruling judges also favoured excluding the creamy layer from SCs and STs.
The majority verdict by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and Justices B R Gavai, Vikram Nath, Pankaj Mithal, Satish Chandra Sharma and Manoj Misra overruled the 2004 judgment in E V Chinnaiah vs State of Andhra Pradesh, wherein it was held that Scheduled Castes constituted a homogeneous group and cannot be sub-categorized.
Justice Bela M Trivedi was the lone dissenter who, in her verdict, said Scheduled Castes constituted a homogeneous class and “cannot be tinkered with by the States”.
The matter reached the 7-judge Bench after a 5-judge Bench, on August 27, 2020, in the State of Punjab vs Davinder Singh, said the judgment in Chinnaiah requires to be revisited by a larger Bench since it had failed to consider significant aspects with a bearing on the issue.
The majority 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-categorize them would amount to tinkering with the Presidential List, in violation of Article 341 (2) and Article 14 of the Constitution.
Writing for himself and Justice Misra, CJI Chandrachud said Article 341 does not create an integrated homogeneous class. “Empirical evidence indicates that there is inequality even within the Scheduled Castes. The Scheduled Castes are not a homogeneous integrated class,” he said.
The ruling said “the power of Parliament to vary the list includes not merely the power to exclude or include ‘any caste, race or tribe’ but also the power to exclude or include ‘parts of or groups within any caste, race or tribe… Article 341(2) bars the State Legislature from removing or adding castes from and to the List respectively. Sub-classification within the Scheduled Castes for the purposes of affirmative action, including reservation, does not include or exclude any caste or group from the List”.
In a separate concurring judgement, Justice Gavai said, “I find that the attitude of the categories in the Presidential List opposing such a sub-classification is that of a person in the general compartment of the train. Firstly, the persons outside the compartment struggle to get into the general compartment. However, once they get inside it, they make every attempt possible to prevent the persons outside such a compartment from entering it.”
Justice Mithal said “statistics proves that the deprived and the marginalized persons have not been able to achieve the benefit of reservation which is permissible at higher level as about 50% of the students from the most backward classes drop out of school before Class-V and 75% drop out before Class-VIII” and “only the children of some of the castes, who are already affluent or urbanized, are able to obtain higher education and the benefits of reservation”.
Justice Trivedi, in her dissenting judgement, said the law laid down by the 5-judge Bench in Chinnaiah, “is the correct law and deserves to be confirmed”.
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