Executive, legislature to take call on exclusion from quota: SC

THE Supreme Court on Thursday said the executive and the legislature would decide whether persons, who had availed of quota benefits and were in a position to compete with others, were to be excluded from reservation.

- SUCHITRA KALYAN MOHANTY @ New Delhi

While referring to a seven-judge Constitution bench verdict of the apex court in August last year, a bench of Justices BR Gavai and Augustine George Masih made the observation on a plea. "We have given our view that taking into consideration the past 75 years, such persons who have already availed benefits and are in a position to compete with others, should be excluded from reservation. But it is a call to be taken by the executive and the legislature," said Justice Gavai.

The Constitution bench, by a majority verdict, held states were constitutionally empowered to make sub-classifications within the scheduled castes (SC), which form a socially heterogeneous class, for granting reservation for the uplift of castes that were socially and educationally more backward among them.

Justice Gavai, who was part of the Constitution bench and penned a separate verdict, had said states must evolve a policy for identifying the "creamy layer," even among the SCs and schedule tribes and deny them the benefit of reservation.