Supreme Court Upholds 10% EWS Reservation by 3:2; Exclusion of SC, ST and OBC Poor Divides the Bench

The 103rd Amendment, in force from 14.01.2019, added clause (6) to Articles 15 and 16, enabling special provisions, including reservation of up to ten per cent, for economically weaker sections of citizens other than SCs, STs and non-creamy-layer OBCs (Maheshwari J., para 1). The petitions argued that economic criteria cannot ground reservation, that excluding the backward classes is discriminatory, and that the extra ten per cent breaches the fifty per cent ceiling (Maheshwari J., para 2). The Court framed three main issues (Maheshwari J., para 5).

Maheshwari J. held that reservation, an exception to equality and an enabling provision, is not a basic feature, so its modulation for economic justice under the Preamble and Articles 38, 39 and 46 cannot breach the basic structure (paras 101, 104). The excluded classes already have their own reservations and are not aggrieved (para 88). The fifty per cent ceiling applies to reservations under Articles 15(4), 15(5) and 16(4) and is not inflexible (paras 93-94). Trivedi J. agreed that the EWS form a separate class from the general category (Trivedi J., para 21), and Pardiwala J. held the amendment valid, adding that reservation must not become a vested interest (Pardiwala J., paras 190-191); both called for revisiting reservation over time. Bhat J., dissenting with Lalit CJI, accepted economic criteria but held that excluding the poor among SCs, STs and OBCs is arbitrary and violates the equality code, and that economic criteria do not suit Article 16 (Bhat J., paras 1-2, 190-193).