Sub-categorisation judgment: A progressive ratio piggybacked by a noxious obiter

The recent Supreme Court judgment allowing sub-categorisation of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes has many good things going for it, but has to deal with data gaps, a changing socio-political reality and a dangerous obiter, writes Arvind Narrain. 

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ON August 1, 2024, a seven-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court delivered a 6:1 majority judgment upholding the legality of the sub-classification of Scheduled Castes for the purposes of reservations.

The judgment is 565 pages long with the main opinion authored by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dr D.Y. Chandrachud speaking for himself and Justice Manoj Misra. There were concurring opinions by Justices Gavai, Pankaj Mittal, Vikram Nath and Satish Chandra Sharma. The dissent was authored by Justice Bela Trivedi.

The majority overruled the five-judge Bench decision in E.V. Chinnaiah versus State of Andhra Pradesh in which it was held that the category called Scheduled Caste was a homogenous category and it was constitutionally impermissible to subclassify it for the purposes of reservations.

According to Chinnaiah, the President and then the Parliament had exclusive power to exclude or include groups in the list of Scheduled Castes under Article 341 and state governments did not have the power to sub-classify as such classification was a form of exclusion from the list of Scheduled Castes.

The judgment of the Supreme Court has elicited strong responses with a section criticising it strongly for legitimising sub-reservation which will further divide the Dalit community.