The Supreme Court has rejected the review petitions challenging its ruling that allows sub-classification within Scheduled Castes (SC) to allocate separate quotas for the more disadvantaged groups within the SC categories.

On August 1, a 7-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, by a 6:1 majority, ruled that states have the authority to identify the more disadvantaged groups within the Scheduled Castes (SC) categories and can sub-classify them for the purpose of providing separate quotas within the overall SC reservation.

Following the judgment, several review petitions were filed challenging the decision. However, the Court declined to review the verdict, stating that there was no apparent error in the original ruling.

"Having perused the review petitions, there is no error apparent on the face of the record. No case for review under Order XLVII Rule 1 of the Supreme Court Rules 2013 has been established. The review petitions are, therefore, dismissed," stated the order passed by the bench in chambers.

The verdict was delivered by a bench consisting of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices BR Gavai, Vikram Nath, Bela M. Trivedi, Pankaj Mithal, Manoj Misra, and Satish Chandra Sharma. In her lone dissent, Justice Bela Trivedi held that sub-classification within the Scheduled Castes is not permissible.

Of the six judges in the majority, four made detailed observations on the need to exclude the "creamy layer" from the Scheduled Castes and emphasized that the government must take steps to identify them.

The Court clarified that while permitting sub-classification, states cannot allocate 100% reservation for any specific sub-class. Additionally, the state must justify the sub-classification based on empirical data demonstrating the inadequacy of representation for that sub-class.

The 7-judge Constitution Bench was primarily examining two key aspects: (1) whether sub-classification within the reserved castes is permissible, and (2) the validity of the decision in E.V. Chinnaiah v. State of Andhra Pradesh (2005) 1 SCC 394, which concluded that 'Scheduled Castes' (SCs) notified under Article 341 constitute a homogenous group and cannot be further sub-categorized.

The bench, consisting of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices BR Gavai, Vikram Nath, Bela M. Trivedi, Pankaj Mithal, Manoj Misra, and Satish Chandra Sharma, reserved the judgment on February 8 of this year after hearing the case for three days.

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