1. Introduction to the Background
All judicial decisions taken accounting for the sentiments of the mass and the legality of the said argument from either side without having given a thought about its true applicability in the pragmatic sense would only lead to chaos and dissatisfaction of the mass. Many cases, if not most, account some emotional biases while determining the culpability of the said accused and determining the true accuracy of the facts or arguments presented by the counsel to support their respected clients, this is shown extensively especially while providing unbiased and accurate judgements in many kinds of heinous cases such as that of rape.
Individuals tracing back themselves as Scheduled Caste (SCs) and the Scheduled Tribe (STs), have long faced discriminatory behaviour not just from the people of the country but by the government themselves. This was even seen when neither the SCs nor the Backward Tribes were given a more justified representation in the Constituent Assembly (1946) during the drafting process of the constitution, only 31 and 6 members respectively out of 296 members, despite the sampling for representation was done on basis of proportionality of 1 to a Million.
The Preamble of the Indian Constitution is the proof to the simple fact that ‘Equality’ for all and basic features of ‘Fraternity’ are integral to the very nuclear structure of our constitution that form everything presented subsequently to ensure Social Justices as mandated to be ascertained by the Government of a Welfare State. Being a state that tries to utilize the best of both worlds – Socialism and Capitalism; India has done pretty good for itself in ensuring the rights of those who don’t get voiced much, but there is still a long way to go.
To best understand the nature of our system, whom we usually find advocating for the rights of the people belonging to the community of SCs and STs, the sociopolitical domain of socialism, where the State has the right to amend, create or nullify any law, act, or statute to ensure the livelihood and dignity of communities that are marginalized or socially backward and mentioned explicitly *, does much justice to our understanding of how the Constitution has ensured equity of rights, needs and responsibilities towards these marginalized communities.
Though as it may seem to be a very heavy responsibility of the government, its misuse by the political parties of the country for ‘votebank politics’, leading towards the nefarious cycle of self-victimization in which individuals belonging to these sections of the society. This has made the idea of being a ‘Scheduled Caste / Scheduled Tribe Individual’ to become its very own culture, a malicious one from which many do no want to come out willingly thanks to the benefits and exemptions provided by the governments and the law in entirety.
* Art 15(4) states that “nothing in this article or clause (2) of article 29 shall prevent the State from making any special provision for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes”, which was added by the Constitution (1st Amendment) Act, (1951).
Art 366(24) of the Constitution defines ‘Scheduled Castes’ as ‘such castes, races or tribes or parts of or groups within such castes, races or tribes as are deemed under Article 341 to be Scheduled Castes for the purposes of this Constitution’ and Art 366(25) of the Constitution defines ‘Scheduled Tribes’ as ‘such tribes or tribal communities or parts of or groups within such tribes or tribal communities as deemed under Article 342 to be Scheduled Tribes for the purposes of this Constitution’
According to Art 340 of the Indian Constitution, the constitution provides the backward classes and scheduled classes of the society the right to have a special commission under the President, that deems whether the benefits provided to the community is helping to foster the growth of their community. Similarly the Art 341 and Art 342 of the Constitution guarantees the power to the President to name any particular section of the society as ‘Scheduled Caste’ or ‘Scheduled Tribe’ respectively, showing that at any given time, the limitations of constitution to guarantee these socially-backward classes the right to have a livelihood at par with the other citizens of the society with similar standard of dignity within them.
1.1 Context of the Case
The Honourable Chief Justice of India on 1st August 2024 heard the case that was moved to the Supreme Court of India, with the ‘principal issue is whether sub-classification of the Scheduled Castes for reservation is constitutionally permissible’ (Supreme Court of India, 2024).
The Supreme Court referred to the cases against ‘Punjab Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes (Reservation in Services) Act, 2006’; ‘Haryana Government’s Notification regarding sub-classification of scheduled castes of their state dated 9th November, 1994’; and the ‘Tamil Nadu Arunthathiyars (Special Reservation of seats in educational institutions including private educational Institutions and of appointments or posts in services under State within the Reservation for the Scheduled Castes) Act 2009’ to provide background for this case, all intrinsically connected to the case of ‘EV Chinniah v. State of Andhra Pradesh’.
All the aforementioned acts or cases can be connected to a single case, i.e. EV Chinniah v. State of Andhra Pradesh, wherein appeals were moved against the retention of constitutional sanctity of the Andhra Pradesh Scheduled Castes (Rationalisation of Reservations) Act 2000, which was passed by the State Legislature, that aimed to rationalize reservation of state vacancies by dividing the Scheduled Castes and Tribes further into groups according to which certain percentage of reservation will be provided to them.
For Chinniah, a 3-Judge bench was established to adjudicate the validity of this act. The appellants in this case argued that once the President exercises their constitutional right to Art 341 or Art 342, through a notification, the Scheduled Castes or Tribes named by the president constitute a ‘homogenous unit or class’, whose further division is a clear violation of Art 341, Art 342 and Art 14 of the Constitution of India. This was further clarified by Justice Hegde, who deemed this Act ‘unconstitutional’, instead he claimed that ‘it is upto the respective classes to further divide themselves into more backward or less backward classes, and the duty of the state is to maintain the efficiency of the administration of the benefits provided to such classes by the constitution’.
Justice Hegde observed that an exception arose in the Indra Sawhney case, where sub-classification was allowed only for the OBCs (Other Backward Classes) and not for the SCs and STs, as ‘giving preference to a certain miniscule population of the marginal population, would be a direct violation of Art 14 and 15’, but interpretation of the phrase ‘Backward’ can be also interpreted to refer to socially and educationally backward classes, which would too automatically include the Scheduled Castes and Tribes.
Hence, interpreting the Art 16(4), the State can make certain rational benefits available to segments of these communities that are downtrodden, showing that Scheduled Castes and tribes are ‘not entirely homogenous’. By going through the whole context that was discussed just above, we can effectively understand that despite numerous efforts made by ‘the State’ to be able to sub-classify certain Scheduled Castes or Tribes, it has been deemed ‘unconstitutional’ across a myriad of cases ranging from the High Court of a state to the Supreme Court of India, like the case of EV Chinniah v. State of Andhra Pradesh.
This shows that irrespective of ‘the actions’ taken by the state, sub-classification of Scheduled Castes and Tribes remains a contentious topic, as we can be stuck on either side of the scale after implementing such a decision, it could either violate fundamental rights of individuals by preferring a ‘miniscule population within the broader socially backward class’ while on the other hand, one can be stuck by the continuance of provision being given to such communities that ‘enrich their livelihood and their sense of dignity’ who may already be having enough of those in their life when compared with others.
This is why some believe sub-classification, as tedious and controversial the decision may be, must be brought into effect to curb misuse of reservations and certain other benefits provided to the socially backward and marginalized communities to ensure that these aids certainly go to those who truly need them.
1.2 State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh: Proceedings in SC
Similar to this case regarding the exclusion of a certain ‘more privileged class’ from the rest of the socially or educationally backward classes of society, the court in Jarnail Singh v. Lachhmi Narain Gupta too observed that exclusion of this ‘creamy layer’ from the rest of the marginalized community was necessary to ensure that the benefits that the constitution ensure to the development of the livelihood of such classes of people seep into the more downtrodden sects of these communities. The court in Jarnail Singh v. Lachhmi Narain Gupta observed that, this ideal does not in any way violate the Art 341 of the Indian Constitution, where the President has the right to identify and notify the inclusion of a certain community as Scheduled Caste.
In this, State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh case, the state submitted that the state reserves the power to sub-classify to ensure that the ‘preferential treatment promotes substantive equality’. References were made to the Indra Sawhney Case that agrees to further sub-classifying the sections or marginalized communities, but this is different from the ‘creamy layer’ concept. The representation of the state argued that –
“(i) economic advancement does not offset social discrimination faced by the Scheduled Castes;
(ii) while the creamy layer excludes the socially advanced, sub-classification aims to identify within the Scheduled Castes, those who face the maximum social discrimination;
(iii) subclassification mainstreams certain castes and creates a preference based on qualitative inclusion, contradistinguished from exclusion of the creamy layer; and
(iv) preferential treatment identifies certain castes within the Scheduled Castes’ list, while the creamy layer exclusion applies to individuals”
Along with the counsel of State, several other counsel members submitted that the constitution in reference to any of the judgements that have been mentioned above, does not bar the State from making sub-classification of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes based on inter-se backwardness of any community.
On the other hand, the counsel of the respondents submitted that according to Art 341(2), only the Parliament reserves the right to make any adjustments or changes of any sorts in the list decreed by the President regarding the identification of Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribes, and any arbitrary action taken by the state to sub-classify the list is meant to achieve necessary political gains. No mention for sub-classification is there in the Seventh Schedule of the Indian Constitution, and even if it were to be permissible, only the Parliament has the right to make such classifications and not the legislature. Not even the legislature has the authority to make any changes to the list finalized by the President.
1.3 Supreme Court’s Verdict
The Supreme Court believes that Art 14 of the constitution, guarantees factual and not formal sense of equality, i.e. people situated in similar situations must be treated as equals. But, if the individuals are not similarly situated, one cannot treat them as equals, hence paving the way for sub-classification. The Supreme Court also makes references to many court judgements where classification or sub-classification of a heterogenous group has been made based on ‘intelligible differentia’.
The Supreme Court believes that, to determine the constitutional correctness of further classification or sub-classification, the following criteria must be referred to –
- Whether the class is “homogenous” or “similarly situated” for the purpose of the specific law;
- If the answer to ‘a’ above is in the affirmative, the class cannot be subclassified;
- If the answer to ‘a’ above is in the negative, the class can be subclassified upon the fulfilment of the following standard:
- There must be a yardstick (or intelligible differentia) further classifying the class; and
- The yardstick must have a rational nexus with the object of the statute.”