Supreme Court holds sub-classification in Scheduled Castes & Scheduled Tribes is permissible
In a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court, today, upheld the power of States to sub-classify reserved category groups of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SC/STs), into different groups based on their backwardness for extending the benefits of reservation.
A seven-judge Constitution bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud with Justices BR Gavai, Vikram Nath, Bela M Trivedi, Pankaj Mithal, Manoj Misra, and Satish Chandra Sharma gave the judgement by 6-1 majority overruling the 2004 EV Chinnaiah vs State of Andhra Pradesh judgement of the Apex court.
Justice Bela Trivedi dissented from the majority. The 2004 ruling had held that sub-classification of SC/STs is contrary to Article 341, which allows the President to prepare the list of SC/STs.
Pronouncing its majority judgement, the bench observed that the members of SC/ST are not often able to climb up the ladder due to the systemic discrimination and Article 14 permits sub-classification of caste.
The Court also said that historical evidence and social parameters clearly showed that all SC/STs do not constitute a homogenous class noting that in the state of Madhya Pradesh, out of 25 castes only 9 are scheduled castes.
While revoking the 2004’s EV Chinnaiah judgement, the Apex Court said, the sub-classification of SC/STs by States will not fall foul of Article 341.
