New Delhi: A seven-judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court will on Thursday pronounce its verdict on the issue if some castes among the Scheduled Castes can be given preference over other SC castes in matters of public employment and admissions to government institutes.
The judgment comes on a petition filed by the Punjab government which has challenged the decision of the Punjab and Haryana High Court which had struck down The Punjab Scheduled Caste and Backward Classes (Reservation in Services) Act, 2006 in 2010.
Under this act, the Punjab government had made an arrangement whereby fifty percent of the vacancies of the Scheduled Caste quota were offered or reserved first for the Balmikis and Mazhbi Sikhs.
Now, when the Punjab government challenged the High Court judgment, two legal points were culled out for the court to decide. The first legal issue was – can sub-classification be permitted for the SC and ST categories since the same is permitted for the SEBC category if state legislatures competent to introduce sub-classification within the SC and ST categories?
Punjab government in the Supreme Court has relied on a nine-judge judgment in the Indira Sawhney case of reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs).
As per the Indira Sawhney judgment, sub-classification was permitted for the Socially educationally backward classes and it cannot be disallowed for the Scheduled caste and Scheduled tribe categories.
Punjab government also argued that preferential treatment was a facet of the right to equality. Sub-classification, as introduced by the Punjab government, was permitted by Article 16 and furthered the cause of adequate representation.
The matter was heard by seven judges comprising of the Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justices BR Gavai, Vikram Nath, Bela M Trivedi Pankaj Mithal, Manoj Misra and Satish Chandra Sharma. The judges had reserved had reserved the verdict on the matter in February this year.