• December 1999 Indra Sawhney II: Court reiterates creamy layer exclusion. “To us it appears rather anomalous that while governments declare endlessly that they will see to it that the benefits of reservations really reach the needy amongst the backwards, the very action of the government both on the executive side and the Legislative side, deliberately refusing to exclude the creamy layer¿.are leading to a serious erosion of the reservation program.”

• October 2006: Court Re iterates Creamy Layer Exclusion and Extends it to SC/ST’s.

Identifying the Cream

• 1992: Indra Sawhney: Four judges favored economic criteria. One judge argued that no group should be excluded until it had acquired the social capacities to compete with Forward Classes.

• 1995: Ashok Kumar Thakur vs. State of Bihar: the criteria used to identify creamy layer must be reasonable. Supreme Court chastised the governments of U.P. and Bihar for positing unrealistically high criteria for exclusion in order to subvert the requirement that the creamy layer be excluded.

• 1999: Supreme Court reiterates that exercise of identifying the creamy layer must not be mere window dressing, but must be careful and deliberate. It also recommended that any list must be open to review periodically.

What to Watch: How will the government now identify the creamy layer? How will it set up a mechanism to periodically review it?

50 per cent Lakshman Rekha

• 1963: M.R. Balaji vs. State of Mysore: Supreme Court suggests that a special provision should be “less than fifty percent,” so that it is compatible with equal opportunity for all.

... contd.