NEW DELHI, October 17 — A seven-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court of India rendered a historic landmark judgment on Saturday affirming that State legislatures possess the constitutional authority to create sub-classifications within Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes for targeted affirmative action.
Overruling the 2004 precedent in the E.V. Chinnaiah case, the majority bench ruled that sub-categorization does not violate Article 341(1) or amount to tampering with the Presidential List of Scheduled Castes. Instead, it advances substantive equality under Articles 14, 15(4), and 16(4) by ensuring that preferential reservation quotas reach the most historically marginalized and unrepresented sub-groups within the backward classes.
The apex court laid down strict constitutional safeguards, emphasizing that State governments cannot act on political whim or executive discretion; any sub-quota must be substantiated by rigorous empirical data proving systemic under-representation and remains subject to judicial review under the doctrine of proportionality.
Constitutional jurisprudence governing affirmative action under Articles 15(4) and 16(4), Presidential powers under Article 341, the scope of judicial review under Article 32, landmark verdicts (Indra Sawhney 1992, M. Nagaraj 2006, Jarnail Singh 2018), and the creamy layer doctrine constitute high-priority themes across UPSC GS-II and judicial services examinations.