Plea to exclude SC/ST creamy layer from quota

Plea to exclude SC/ST creamy layer from quota

Context

The Supreme Court will hear a petition to exclude the affluent members, or the creamy layer, of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes from the benefits of reservation

What does the petition say?

The petition filed by Samta Andolan Samiti, which represents the poor strata of the SCs/STs in Rajasthan, wants the creamy layer of the SCs/STs excluded from the benefits.

Petition contends that

• The rich among the SCs/STs are “snatching away” the benefits, while the deserving and impoverished continue to “bite the dust.” It is this lack of percolation of benefits to the poor and really backward among these communities that has led to social unrest, Naxalite movements and perennial poverty
• no class or caste remained homogeneously backward across time. Only the backward portion of castes included in the list of SCs/STs alone are constitutionally entitled to the benefits of reservation
• Means test: Petition refers to the Constitution Bench’s 2006 judgment in the M. Nagaraj case that the “means test [a scrutiny of the value of assets of an individual claiming reservation] should be taken into consideration to exclude the creamy layer from the group earmarked for reservation.”

Significance

This is the first time a petition has been filed urging the Supreme Court to introduce the creamy layer concept for the SCs/STs

• Indra Sawhney case: In 1992, a nine-judge Bench of the court in the Indra Sawhney case, or the Mandal case as it was popularly known, upheld the caste-based reservation for the OBCs as valid
  • Exclusion of creamy layer of OBCs: The court also said the creamy layer of the OBCs (those earning a specified income) should not get the benefits of reservation. The ruling, however, confined the exclusion of the creamy layer to the OBCs and not the SCs/STs