Can SC and ST quotas be sub-classified? With a 6-1 majority, SC says yes

The Supreme Court Bench ruled 6:1 in favour of allowing states to further classify SC/STs based on their backwardness to tailor reservation benefits, overturning a 2004 verdict

A seven-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court, on Thursday (August 1), upheld that states have the authority to subdivide reserved category groups based on their varying levels of backwardness to extend reservation benefits, Bar and Bench reported.

The decision was made by a 6 to 1 majority and gives power to the states to classify reservation of caste groups such as Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SC/STs).

In doing so, the apex court overturned a 2004 ruling in the EV Chinnaiah vs State of Andhra Pradesh case, which had stated that Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) could not be sub-classified for reservation purposes.

The Bench, headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, included Justices B R Gavai, Vikram Nath, Bela M Trivedi, Pankaj Mithal, Manoj Misra, and Satish Chandra Sharma. The judgement had been reserved since February 8, 2024, following a referral to the Bench.

In delivering its verdict, the Bench commented, "The members of SC/ST are not often able to climb up the ladder due to the systemic discrimination faced. Article 14 permits sub-classification of caste. Court must check if a class is homogeneous or a class not integrated for a purpose can be further classified."

The Supreme Court affirmed the validity of laws allowing subclassification in states like Punjab and Tamil Nadu, the report noted. It upheld the Punjab Scheduled Caste and Backward Classes (Reservation in Services) Act, 2006, and the Tamil Nadu Arunthathiyars (Special Reservation of Seats in Educational Institutions and of Appointments or Posts in the Services under the State within the Reservation for the Scheduled Castes) Act, 2009, which allocates reservations for Arunthathiyars within the state's 18 per cent SC reservation.

This ruling arose from a challenge to the Punjab Scheduled Caste and Backward Classes (Reservation in Services) Act, 2006, which had been invalidated by the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The Punjab government appealed this decision to the Supreme Court.

The challenge cited the 2005 Constitution Bench judgement in EV Chinnaiah v. State of Andhra Pradesh, which had declared subclassification of SCs unconstitutional under Article 341, asserting that SCs constitute a homogeneous class that cannot be subdivided.

The issue was referred to the seven-judge bench in 2020 after a five-judge Bench disagreed with the EV Chinnaiah decision. During hearings, the Chief Justice distinguished between "sub-classification" and "sub-categorisation" of communities, cautioning against reducing the inclusion or exclusion of communities to appeasement politics.