Congress top leaders will hold a meeting today to discuss the strategy and stand on the situation arising after the Supreme Court's decision that the creamy layer of SC/ST should be excluded from the reservation. The meeting will be held at Congress National President Mallikarjun Kharge's residence at 6:30 pm.
Along with Kharge, LoP Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, MPs KC Venugopal, Jairam Ramesh and other senior leaders will be present.The Supreme Court, in a landmark ruling on August 1, ruled that states have the power to sub-classify SCs and STs and said that the authority concerned, while deciding if the class is adequately represented, must calculate adequacy based on effective and not quantitative representation.
The top court ruled by a majority judgement of 6:1, that sub-classification within the SCs and STs reservation is permissible. As many as six separate opinions were delivered in the case. The judgement was delivered by the seven-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, which overruled earlier judgement in the EV Chinnaiah matter, which had held that sub-classification was not permissible because SC/STs form homogenous classes.
Besides CJI Chandrachud, other judges on the bench were Justices BR Gavai, Vikram Nath, Bela M Trivedi, Pankaj Mithal, Manoj Misra, and Satish Chandra Sharma. Justice BR Gavai suggested that the state evolve a policy for identifying the creamy layer, even from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes to exclude them from the benefit of affirmative action. Justice Bela M. Trivedi, in a dissenting opinion, said that she disagreed with the majority judgement that sub-classification within the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes is permissible.
Union Minister Chirag Paswan expressed his disagreement with the Supreme Court's observation and said that the Lok Jandhakti Party (Ram Vilas) will be filing a review petition against the ruling. Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Manoj Jha also said that he respects the decision but this kind of sub-categorization reflects injustice and is pointless and emotionless.