The union cabinet has taken an unanimous decision to not apply the creamy layer in the SC / ST quota after a detailed discussion at the meeting on the Supreme Court judgment suggesting the same on the reservation for the SCs and STs. Information Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said “According to the Constitution given by B R Ambedkar, there is no provision for a creamy layer in the SC-ST reservation” ” The cabinet is of a well-thought-out view that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government is committed towards the provisions of the Constitution”, the Minister added. The Government has said that the provision for ‘creamy layer’ in reservation quota for SC / ST would be unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court gave a historic judgement last week where it said that states can sub-classify the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes so that more underprivileged sections among them benefit from the reserved category quota. The Supreme Court in essence said that those who have availed the benefits of quota for generations, should be kept away and the quota should be made available to more deserving sections. How can the children of IAS, IPS be equated with the children of a poor farmer in a village for the purpose of allocating benefit of quota?, was the tone of wondering aloud by the Supreme Court. The judgement was held by a seven-judge constitution bench which delivered six separate judgements. The bench was headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud delivered the 6:1 majority judgement. Justice B R Gavai, a member of scheduled caste, was on the bench.
It has been witnessed that though the reservation has immensely helped the people from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes to come up, socially and economically, which would have been impossible without the statutory reservation quota, only the dominant castes and tribes among the beneficiaries have continued to reap the benefit at the cost of more underpreviledged among themselves. The concept of creamy layer is applicable in the OBC quota. Scheduled castes and Scheduled tribes argue that the quota is principally to address the stigma and discrimination a person from such castes faces even after attaining higher education and wealth. With equal qualifications and intellectual abilities, a person from the scheduled caste or scheduled tribe tend to lose out in favour of a person from castes considered higher, they argue. The stigma of the surname which reveals the caste makes the social assimilation of those from scheduled castes and scheduled tribes more difficult in most towns, barring big cities, to the extent of denying the sale of a house.
Earlier, Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal had also said that “The reference to creamy layer in the sub-categorisation of SC/STs is an observation by a Supreme Court judge and not a part of the decision.”
The cabinet meeting decision came after a delegation of SC/ST MPs met with the Prime Minister in which he had assured them that the government is committed to their welfare. The PM informed about the meeting and his assurance in a post on social media platform X. The delegation of 100 MPS included ministers Kiren Rijiju, Sarbananda Sonowal and Arjun Ram Meghwal.
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