Won’t bring in creamy layer clause for SC/ST quota: PM Modi

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 9

Days after the Supreme Court urged states to evolve a policy for excluding the creamy layer among Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes from reservation benefits, Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured ruling party MPs that the concept would not be implemented in respect of SC/ST quotas.

His assurance came on Friday at a meeting with a delegation of BJP’s SC/ST members of Parliament, who expressed deep concern on the matter.

The Union Cabinet later discussed the apex court observations on the SC/ST creamy layer in detail. Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the “Union Cabinet’s well-thought-out decision is that the SC and ST reservation should be as per the Constitution drafted by BR Ambedkar and the Constitution has no provision for creamy layer for SCs and STs”. On the eve of elections in Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand, the BJP does not wish to touch the issue, a political hot potato. This especially after the party’s internal reviews showed the Opposition narrative that the NDA wanted absolute Lok Sabha majority to dilute SC/ST quotas went home. Currently, creamy layer criteria are applicable only to Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in order to exclude the better-offs among them from quota benefits, in terms of the 1992 nine-judge Constitution Bench verdict of the Supreme Court in the Indira Sawhney case.

However, four of the six judges on the seven-judge Bench led by CJI DY Chandrachud – which by a 6:1 majority ruled on August 1 that sub-classification in Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes was permissible for the purpose of reservation – had said the creamy layer among the SCs/STs should be identified and excluded from reservation. But since the exclusion of the creamy layer among SCs/STs was not an issue before the Constitution Bench, its opinion on the contentious issue is being treated as obiter dicta (a judge’s expression of opinion uttered in court or in a written judgment, but not essential to the decision and therefore not legally binding as a precedent) and not as ratio decidendi (the reason for the decision or judgment and therefore binding on parties to the dispute).

This explains the rationale behind the PM’s assurance to MPs that the creamy layer will not be implemented for SCs/STs.

After meeting Modi today, BJP Rajya Sabha MP from Himachal Pradesh Sikander Singh said, “We have all been extremely concerned about the Supreme Court’s observations. We have been getting phone calls from people who are apprehensive about what might happen.”

BJP MP Faggan Singh Kulaste (from Madhya Pradesh’s Mandla ST seat) said the delegation submitted a memorandum to the PM, urging him not to implement the court’s observation on the creamy layer. “The PM was on the same page as us. He asked us not to worry and said the creamy layer concept will not be implemented for SCs/STs,” Kulaste said.

The government also said in Parliament today that the court’s “creamy layer” remark was an observation and not part of the SC judgment on sub-classification within SC/ST quotas.

Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal, speaking during Question Hour, said the Opposition should stop misleading society on a Supreme Court judge’s “observations”.