{"id":12607,"date":"2021-09-08T11:16:14","date_gmt":"2021-09-08T05:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/?p=12607"},"modified":"2021-09-08T11:16:14","modified_gmt":"2021-09-08T05:46:14","slug":"economic-criterion-not-sole-basis-for-creamy-layer-supreme-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/economic-criterion-not-sole-basis-for-creamy-layer-supreme-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Economic criterion not sole basis for creamy layer: Supreme Court"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\ud83d\udd3a\"\u00a0Syllabus topic:<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"\u2796\"\u00a0Sociology :\u00a0<\/u>Visions of Social Change in India; Constitution, law and social change. Challenges of Social Transformation; Poverty, deprivation and inequalities. Caste conflicts. Illiteracy and disparities in education.<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

News in short:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe basis of exclusion of \u2018creamy layer\u2019 cannot be merely economic,\u201d a Bench of Justices L. Nageswara Rao and Aniruddha Bose observed in their judgment, while referring to the court\u2019s Indra Sawhney verdict of 1992, which declared that \u2018creamy layer\u2019 in a backward community should be excluded from reservation so that the more deserving were able to come up.<\/p>\n

What is the creamy layer concept?<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  • The expression\u00a0\u2018means-test and creamy layer\u2019\u00a0first found its mention in the\u00a0Supreme Court\u2019s\u00a0landmark judgment in the\u00a0Indra Sawhney vs Union of India case of 1992\u00a0(also known as Mandal Commission case<\/em>), that was delivered by a\u00a0nine-judge Bench\u00a0on November 16, 1992.\n

    <\/strong>The creamy layer was then described as- \u201csome 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\u201d.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    \u00a0<\/strong>SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    Reservation provides\u00a0appropriate positive discrimination<\/strong>\u00a0for the benefit of the socially and educationally backward sections of the society. And the creamy layer concept helps in ensuring that only the\u00a0genuinely deserving and the most downtrodden<\/strong>\u00a0members of any particular community get those reservation benefits.<\/p>\n

    Should reservation based on caste be determined by\u00a0economic criteria?<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

      \n
    • 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.<\/li>\n
    • This is why there is no reservation for low-income members of the upper castes. Reservation is meant to\u00a0ensure\u00a0that backward castes are fairly represented in public services, educational institutions and legislatures, and get a share in state power \u2013 something denied to them throughout Indian history.<\/li>\n
    • 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.<\/li>\n
    • In 2016, after Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula\u00a0committed\u00a0suicide at Hyderabad Central University, his friends and family blamed caste discrimination at the elite institution.<\/li>\n
    • In 2014, a temple in Bihar was reportedly cleaned and its idol washed after Dalit Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi\u00a0visited\u00a0it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      Will excluding the creamy layer really benefit the poorer in their community?<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

      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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      \u00a0Syllabus topic: \u00a0Sociology :\u00a0Visions of Social Change in India; Constitution, law and social change. Challenges of Social Transformation; Poverty, deprivation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11844,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1033,114,1030,1029,1028,1032,1026,115,116,1034,1027,1031],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-best-optional-sociology","category-sociology-optional","category-sociology-civils","category-sociology-ias","category-sociology-mains","category-sociology-mains-ias","category-sociology-optional-sociology-optional","category-sociology-optional-paper-i","category-sociology-optional-paper-ii","category-sociology-scoring-optional","category-sociology-upsc","category-sociology-upsc-mains"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12607"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12608,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12607\/revisions\/12608"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}