SC Clarifies OBC Creamy Layer Criteria:
The Supreme Court (SC) of India has ruled that parental income alone cannot determine the “creamy layer” status of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) candidates, clarifying long-standing confusion in applying reservation rules in civil services examinations.
- The judgement resolves confusion created by the 1993 Office Memorandum (OM) of the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) and the 2004 clarificatory letter.
- The 1993 DoPT OM had clearly stated that income from salaries and agricultural land should not be counted in the income/wealth test for creamy layer determination.
- However, the 2004 DoPT clarification directed inclusion of salary income of PSU/private sector employees, which resulted in unequal treatment between government employees’ children and PSU/private sector employees’ children.
- The SC held that creamy layer determination is status-based, not purely income-based, and must consider the parent’s employment status and post category (Group A/B/C/D), not just income.
- The SC held that the government engaged in “hostile discrimination” by allowing children of lower-tier government employees to retain OBC reservation benefits based on the status of the parent’s post, even if salaries increased.
- Children of equivalent PSU/private sector employees were denied OBC reservation solely because parental salary crossed Rs 8 lakh, treating equals unequally and violating Articles 14, 15, and 16 of the Constitution.
- The verdict may expand OBC reservation eligibility, especially for children of PSU employees and private sector workers previously excluded due to salary-based calculations.
- The Court also directed the government to create supernumerary posts if necessary to accommodate candidates wrongly excluded earlier.
- The concept of “creamy layer” was first applied in the 1992 Indra Sawhney vs Union of India judgment to exclude socially advanced OBCs from reservation benefits.
- Under Existing Rules Children of Group A officers or those promoted before age 40 are excluded from the OBC quota.
- Children of two Group B officers also fall under the creamy layer.
- For non-government occupations, the income limit for creamy layer is Rs 8 lakh annually (since 2017).
