Supreme Court upholds State Governments’ power to sub-classify SCs, STs for quota

Supreme Court allows State Governments to sub-classify Scheduled Castes for reservation, overruling previous verdict, subject to judicial review.

A seven-judge Bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, in a majority judgement, overruled the E.V. Chinnaiah verdict, which had determined that State Legislatures cannot sub-classify Scheduled Castes for grant of reservation in admissions and public jobs.

Chief Justice Chandrachud said Scheduled Castes are not an integrated or homogenous group.

States can identify the differing degrees of discrimination or backwardness and focus on greater benefits to sub-classes of Scheduled Castes. This would not violate the President’s exclusive authority under Article 341 to identify Scheduled Castes. The States’s power to sub-classify is subject to judicial review, it said.

The State’s power cannot be exercised on its mere whims. There should be empirical data, the top court said. The seven-judge Bench judgement also gave the green signal for the Tamil Nadu Assembly’s legislative competence to enact the Arunthathiyar Reservation Act.

The top court on February 8 had reserved its order after hearing submissions from Attorney General R. Venkataramani, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, senior advocate Kapil Sibal and others.

The States represented by senior advocates have sought review of the E.V. Chinnaiah judgment, which in 2004 had ruled that all SC communities which suffered ostracisation, discrimination and humiliation for centuries represented a homogeneous class, incapable of being sub-categorised.

The Bench, also comprising justices B.R. Gavai, Vikram Nath, Bela M. Trivedi, Pankaj Mithal, Manoj Misra and Satish Chandra Mishra, heard 23 petitions, including the lead one filed by the Punjab Government challenging the 2010 verdict of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.