Application of the principle of creamy layer for giving reservation to SCs and STs in India.

Application of the principle of creamy layer for giving reservation to SCs and STs in India.

Since the adoption of the Indian Constitution, certain socially disadvantaged sections of people, based on their castes, are being given reservation in jobs, promotions and admission in educational institutions with a view to ensuring social justice to these sections. Although, initially, this provision was only for ten years, successive governments kept on extending the period by another ten years each time the specified period elapsed. As a result, the provision for caste based reservation has continued till date. At present the percentage of caste based reservation is 49.5%. Meanwhile, this has become a political issue for all political parties in India. 

After more than 70 (seventy) years of facilitation of welfare and development of the so called 'lower castes through' the policy of reservation, a large section of of them have not only become economically advanced, but have also ceased to become socially disadvantages and are fully in the social mainstream. It is now seen in the contemporary societies, where money can buy almost everything, that once a people becomes economically advanced, they no more remain socially disadvantaged. As a matter of fact, the economically disadvantaged are now finding it difficult to enter the societal mainstream, as economic status has now become the new criterion for deciding the class. Thus the economically lower class is now being found to be at the receiving end of all sorts of discrimination. But, even the economically and socially advanced people who, by birth, belong to the lower castes, are availing of the benefits of caste-based reservation because of a lack of a principle to discrimination between the actually economically as well as socially disadvantaged sections of the 'lower castes' and the already advanced sections. This has given rise to another kind social injustice, not only for the economically disadvantaged people belonging to the so called 'upper castes, but also for those who belong to the lower castes and are still socially disadvantaged because of lower economic status.

In view of the above circumstances which have come to give a new kind of structure to the society, it is important that the principle of 'Creamy Layer' be applied to caste based reservation in India to ensure proper social justice to the disadvantaged sections. At present, the principle of Creamy Layer is applied only to OBCs. But, there is no doubt that it should be applied to SCs and STs also to preserve the sanctity of the 'right to equality' by creating positive discrimination in government policies in the true sense of the term.

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