Jaipur : The seven-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court on Thursday opened the way for giving reservation in jobs and education to the more marginalized people among the backward communities of SC-ST. That is, now the way can be cleared to give reservation to those who are backward within the SC-ST Act itself. The Supreme Court said that the quota within the quota will be based on a rational difference. States cannot act arbitrarily regarding this. Along with this, the activities of the states will be subject to judicial review. Along with this, the court has overturned the decision of five judges of the Supreme Court given in the EV Chinnaiya case in 2004. The current bench has set aside the decision given in 2004, in which the Supreme Court had said that sub-categories cannot be created among SC / ST tribes.
During the hearing, the central government had told the court that it was in favour of sub-classification in the SC and ST categories. The Chief Justice had said that to ensure that the benefits reach the more backward groups, the states can make separate classification for reserved category communities.
Judges gave verdict in 6:1 majority
A total of six judgments of 565 pages have been written on this controversial issue. The Chief Justice wrote the judgments on his behalf and on behalf of Justice Manoj Mishra, while Justice B R Gavai, Justice Vikram Nath, Justice Pankaj Mithal, Justice Satish Chandra Mishra and Justice Bela M Trivedi wrote their respective judgments. Except Justice Trivedi, the other five judges agreed with the Chief Justice’s conclusions.
Justice Bela Trivedi gave a separate verdict
Justice Trivedi, in his 85-page dissenting judgment, said that only Parliament can include or exclude a caste from the list of Scheduled Castes and the states have no power to alter it. He ruled that the Scheduled Castes are a ‘homogeneous class’ which cannot be further sub-classified.
