News in short:
The Supreme Court held that the government cannot deny reservation to a person belonging to a backward community solely on the ground that he or she is rich.
Social advancement, higher employment in government services, etc, played an equal rolein deciding whether such a person belonged to the creamy layer and could be denied quota benefits, it said.
“The basis of exclusion of ‘creamy layer’ cannot be merely economic,” a Bench of Justices L. Nageswara Rao and Aniruddha Bose observed in their judgment, while referring to the court’s Indra Sawhney verdict of 1992, which declared that ‘creamy layer’ in a backward community should be excluded from reservation so that the more deserving were able to come up.
What is the creamy layer concept?
- The expression ‘means-test and creamy layer’ first found its mention in the Supreme Court’s landmark judgment in the Indra Sawhney vs Union of India case of 1992 (also known as Mandal Commission case), that was delivered by a nine-judge Bench on November 16, 1992. The creamy layer was then described as- “some members of a backward class who are socially, economically as well as educationally advanced as compared to the rest of the members of that community. They constitute the forward section of that particular backward class and eat up all the benefits of reservations meant for that class, without allowing benefits to reach the truly backward members”.
SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
Reservation provides appropriate positive discrimination for the benefit of the socially and educationally backward sections of the society. And the creamy layer concept helps in ensuring that only the genuinely deserving and the most downtrodden members of any particular community get those reservation benefits.
Should reservation based on caste be determined by economic criteria?
- Reservation is, by definition, a means to ending discrimination based on caste which has been a feature of the Indian society for thousands of years. It is not a remedy for economic backwardness.
- This is why there is no reservation for low-income members of the upper castes. Reservation is meant to ensure that backward castes are fairly represented in public services, educational institutions and legislatures, and get a share in state power – something denied to them throughout Indian history.
- Many commentators have argued that mandating an economic ceiling for reservation misunderstands how caste works: Dalits and Adivasis face discrimination even if they are well-off or educated.
- In 2016, after Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula committed suicide at Hyderabad Central University, his friends and family blamed caste discrimination at the elite institution.
- In 2014, a temple in Bihar was reportedly cleaned and its idol washed after Dalit Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi visited it.
Will excluding the creamy layer really benefit the poorer in their community?
This contention of the Supreme Court is disputed by many activists and experts. They point out that far from seats being corned by a small clique, Dalits and Adivasis are so disadvantaged it is difficult to even fill the seats reserved for them.