'Reservation gets 50 pc limit; creamy layer out'

New Delhi, Oct 19: The Supreme Court, while upholding the constitutional validity of 77th, 81st, 82nd and 85th constitutional amendment, today held that the provision of reservation for the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribe and other Backward sections of society has to adhere to the upper limit of 50 per cent.

A five judge Contitutional bench, headed by Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal, handing down the ruling also said the creamy layer among the reserved categories must be excluded from the benefit of reservation.

The court also said the overall efficiency of the administration must also be taken into consideration while framing the reservation policy.

Other judges on the bench were Justices K G Balakrishnan, S H Kapadia, C K Thakker and P K Balasubramaniyan.

Justice Kapadia, who wrote the unanimous verdict, also said, ''The impugned amendments do not obliterate any of the contitutional requirement, namely, the ceiling limit of 50 per cent (quantitative limitation), the concept of creamy layer (qualitative exclusion), the sub-classification between OBC on one hand and SCs and STs on the other as held in the Mandal Commission.'' The bench also said, ''We reiterate that the ceiling limit of 50 per cent, the concept of creamy layer and other compelling reasons namely backwardness, inadequacy of representation and overall administrative efficiency are all constitutional requirements without which the structure of equality and of opportunity in Article 16 would collapse.'' The Court in its judgement also ruled that article 16 (4A) and 16 (4B) giving powers to the state to provide reservation were not destructive of the basic structure of the constitution.

The court, while disposing of a batch of petitions challenging the validity of the impugned amendment also observed that ''catch-up principle and the concept of consequential seniority cannot be elevated to the status of axioms like secularism, federalism etc.

They do not constitute the basic feature of a constitution''.

The court also said, ''Though the width test is satisfied, in order to maintain the structure of equality under Article 16, we have tailored the quota. In our judgement, we have referred to two types of equality, namely, formal equality which is the essence of rule of law and the egalitarian equality. In order to maintain the formal equality between the BCs on one hand and the GCs on the other, we have held that the quantitative limit / numerical benchmark of 50 per cent shall be the binding rule.'' The court, while virtually reaffirming the Mandal commission case judgement, however, said, ''We have not examined the validity of individual enactments of appropriate states and that question will be gone in individual writs by the appropriate bench in accordance with law laid down by us in the present case.'' The court also said the state is not bound to carry forward the backlog of vacancies in jobs or in promotion from the reserved category.

UNI

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