The Supreme Court, on Thursday, held that the determination of whether a candidate falls under the non-creamy layer or creamy layer of OBC cannot be decided solely on income.
The contentious ruling comes after rejecting the decisions of three courts. The apex court held that the various criteria used to measure income for the determination of the creamy layer for public services unions against government employees to be "discriminatory." A person belongs to the creamy layer of OBC when their family income is Rs 8 lakh or above. These people are not eligible for the reservation.
A bench of justices, PS Narasimha and R Mahadevan, held that the object of excluding the creamy layer is to ensure that socially advanced sections within the OBCs do not get benefits designed for the genuinely backward classes. It is not intended to create artificial distinctions between equally placed members of the same social class.”
The high courts of Madras, Delhi, and Kerala concluded the cases of three OBC candidates seeking entry into the civil services based on their scores in the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) examination. After the document verification, the three were found to belong to the creamy layer. They approached the Central Administrative Tribunal and the high courts. The judicial body directed the Centre to treat them as OBC non-creamy layer.
The high courts focused on the office memorandum (OM) of 1993 that set the criteria for the creamy layer, along with a clarification letter issued by the Centre in 2004. The bench concluded that the wards of OBC parents working in PSUs and the private sector, as was the case with all three petitioners, are being discriminated against when it comes to creamy-layer determination. It held that the determination must exclusively be based on the status or post of the candidate’s parents and not just their income alone.
The top court agreed with the view of the high courts. “Any interpretation of the 1993 OM or the 2004 letter that results in unequal treatment of similarly placed OBC candidates would not only be legally malicious but constitutionally impermissible,” it said. “Determination of creamy layer status solely on the basis of income brackets, without reference to the categories of posts and status parameters enunciated in the 1993 OM is clearly unsustainable in law.”
According to the top court, adopting an interpretation that disadvantages a segment of the same backward class without logical justification would lead to treating “equals as unequals” and would thus become the antithesis of equality, the cornerstone of the Republic.
“In view of the rare facts of the present cases, the reasoning adopted by the High Court that treating similarly placed employees of private entities and PSUs differently from government employees and their wards, while deciding their entitlement to reservation, would lead to hostile discrimination is certainly one that inspires the confidence of this court,” it said.