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Creamy layer for SCs/STs – Centre’s opposition
March 30 , 2018
2305 days
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- The Union government has opposed the idea of a "creamy layer" within the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) category.
- The government told a Bench led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra that the principle of creamy layer cannot be applied to the presidential order on quota for SC/ST groups.
- The court was hearing a petition to exclude the affluent members or the “creamy layer” of the SC and ST communities from accessing the reservation benefits.
- This is the first time such a petition has been filed urging the Supreme Court to introduce the 'creamy layer' concept to the SCs/STs.
- In 1992, a nine-judge Bench of the court in the Indra Sawhney case or the Mandal case (as it was popularly known), upheld the caste-based reservation for the OBCs as valid.
- The Mandal judgment had confined the exclusion of 'creamy layer' only to the OBCs and not the SC/STs.
- Now, the petition wants the same exclusion from quota benefits to the 'creamy layer' among the SC/STs too.
- The petition refers to the report of the Centre's 'Advisory Committee on the revision of the list of Schedule Castes and Schedule Tribes', also known as Lokur Committee, set up in 1965.
- It said that “backwardness has a tendency to perpetuate itself and those who are listed as backward try to remain as such due to various concessions and benefits they derive. Thus, backwardness becomes a vested interest”.
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