Supreme Court permits sub-classification of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes for reservations

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the sub-classification of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes is permissible for providing reservations in government jobs and education, Live Law reported.

The seven-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud in a 6:1 majority verdict, overruled the court’s 2004 judgement, which held that Scheduled Castes formed a homogenous group and hence could not be sub-divided into categories, The Indian Express reported.

Four of the seven judges also called for the identification of the creamy layer among the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes categories so that they could be removed from the reservation matrix, according to Bar and Bench.

Apart from Chandrachud, the bench comprised Justices BR Gavai, Vikram Nath, Bela M Trivedi, Pankaj Mithal, Manoj Misra and Satish Chandra Sharma.

Trivedi dissented from the majority, holding that such sub-classification was not permissible.

While pronouncing its verdict, the bench said that the members of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities were often not able to “climb up the ladder due to the systemic discrimination faced”, Bar and Bench reported.

The court said that Article 14 of the Constitution, which pertains to equality before the law, permitted the sub-classification of caste, adding that historical evidence and social parameters showed that all Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes did not constitute a homogeneous class.

The bench noted that the sub-classification of...

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