CREAMY LAYER RULE ROW: POLICY SPIRIT DISTORTED, COURT RESTORES BALANCE

WHEN a government clarification strays from the spirit of the policy it is meant to explain, confusion is bound to follow.

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The Supreme Court recently cleared up one such bureaucratic mess that began more than two decades ago. The issue concerns an Office Memorandum issued in 1993 following the Supreme Court's verdict in Indira Sawhney (1992). The judgement said the socially advanced ‘creamy layer’ among the other backward classes (OBCs) should be kept out of reservation benefits. However, a clarification issued in 2004 defeated the 1993 policy’s purpose. It created artificial differences between people from the same social class who were in similar positions.The 1993 order said OBC officers in Group A services, and some Group B officers promoted to Group A before the age of 40, would fall under the creamy layer. It also