INTRODUCTION

The Union government formed the committee in the backdrop of Prime Minister’s promise to look into the demand   for   sub-categorisation of SCs as raised by the Madiga community in the run-up to the Telangana Assembly election.

JUDICIAL STAND ON THE MATTER:

• In the 1992, Indra Swahney case, the SC recognized that some classes within OBC category maybe more or less backward than others. Accordingly, states were permitted to make sub-classification in OBC category.
• In ‘E.V. Chinnaiah v State of Andhra Pradesh’,2004 the Supreme Court struck down the Andhra Pradesh Scheduled Castes (Rationalisation of Reservations) Act, 2000 for being violative of the right to equality.

                       »      According to SC, states govts cannot categorize any group of people as scheduled caste, this power in Article 341 solely belong to the President ,

                        »     Also the SC category as a whole (as determined under article 341) was one homogenous group, thus any sub-classification of this group will violate the right to equality.

• In 2006, the Punjab & Haryana High Court in ‘Dr. Kishan Pal v. State of Punjab’ also struck down the 1975 notification of Punjab Government based on the Chinnaiah verdict.
• However, in 2006, M Nagaraj vs Union of India Case, the Supreme Court ruled that for SC/ST reservation purposes a state must demonstrate factors of backwardness, representation and overall administrative efficacy.
• In ‘Jarnail Singh v Lachhmi Narain Gupta’, 2018, the Supreme Court upheld the concept of “creamy layer” within SCs too. 

WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES IN SUB-CATEGORISATION?

• Lack of data: There is no scientific basis for classification, as reliable and updated data on the subcategories of SCs is not currently available.
• Political Lobby: Many powerful groups will try to influence the political party in power to include themselves in the sub categorisation for benefits. This will hamper the true idea behind classification.
• A divided society: The communities are already fragmented and this drive will deepen it & initiate infighting. The collective unity among SCs will be lost.
• Will it really help? The NCST stated that the most backward SCs are lagging so far behind forward SC communities that a separate quota would not help.

                  »    For instance, the disparity is such that even if posts were reserved at higher levels, these most backward SCs would not have enough candidates to be considered for it in the first place.

                  »    Hence, allotting separate reservations within the categories would not really address the root cause.

 

 

CONCLUSION

Even among the marginalised, there are communities that have lesser access to basic facilities. As a result, the relatively more forward communities among them have managed to avail benefits consistently while crowding the more backward ones out. The solu

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