Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has issued notice on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking implementation of the “creamy layer” principle within reservations for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs), reported IANS.
A Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India (CJI), Surya Kant, and comprising Justices R Mahadevan and Joymalya Bagchi on March 10 sought responses from the Union Government as well as state governments and Union Territory (UT) administrations in the matter, and tagged the plea with a pending petition seeking similar relief. The latest petition filed by former bureaucrat Gyanendra Kumar Khare has arrayed the Centre, all state governments, UTs and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) as respondents.
The plea, filed under Article 32 of the Constitution, contends that the continued non-implementation of the creamy layer exclusion within SC/ST reservations is “arbitrary, unconstitutional, and violative of the basic structure of the Constitution”. According to the petition, reservation under the Constitution was conceived as a remedial measure to address historical injustice and structural inequality, but was never intended to be a permanent or unconditional entitlement.
“The continued non-exclusion of the creamy layer has serious national consequences, as it fosters resentment between reserved and non-reserved categories and concentrates power and opportunity in hands of elite section,” the PIL said.
It further argued that the absence of creamy layer exclusion has led to internal stratification within SC/ST communities, creating a “class within a class” where relatively advanced families repeatedly avail reservation benefits while the most disadvantaged sections remain excluded.
“Allowing affluent SC/ST to repeatedly avail such benefits deprives poorer members of the community of opportunities to escape poverty and undermines economic justice and national development,” the petition added.
