Fourteen years after the Mandal Commission judgment identified a “creamy layer” only among the Other Backward Classes, the Supreme Court, in a landmark verdict today, extended the concept for the first time to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes too.

The creamy layer, as currently defined by the Government, applies only to OBCs and is a listing of several categories of individuals — based on economic and social criteria — exempt from reservation.

The decision was given by a five-judge Constitution Bench of Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal and Justices K G Balakrishnan, S H Kapadia, C K Thakker and P K Balasubramanyam while upholding the validity of the Constitution 77th, 81st, 82nd and 85th amendments providing for reservation for SC and STs in the matter of promotions in government jobs.

In the process, the judgment in another first, also upheld the validity of laws providing reservation to SCs and STs in the matter of promotions - a far departure from the logic advanced by it in the Mandal case in 1992.

In that case, a five-judge Constitution Bench had ruled against extending reservation to promotions saying this was not envisaged by the Constitution.

In fact, the 77th amendment was brought in to nullify the effect of the Mandal judgment as regards promotion for SCs and STs.

However, the consequences of today’s judgment could be far-reaching given that one of the amendments — 81st, upheld by the court — relates to recruitment of SCs and STs in backlog vacancies. On a strict interpretation, this would mean that the concept of creamy layer would apply in the matter of recruitment of the two classes as well.

... contd.