NEW DELHI, 11 April 2008 — India’s Supreme Court yesterday gave its nod to a government plan to introduce 27 percent reservation for Other Backward Castes (OBCs) in higher educational institutions.

A five-judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court unanimously favored reservation in central educational institutions from 22.5 percent (already reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) to 49.5 percent.

But the court said reserved seats would not be open to students from “backward” communities who came from wealthy families, a group often called “the creamy layer.”

The bench specified that the creamy layer would mean what the court had defined in its 1993 ruling upholding the constitutional validity of the Mandal Commission report. It said the “creamy layer” among OBC students would also be decided according to the criteria fixed by the government in its official order of Sept 8, 1993.

The creamy layers among backward classes include sons and wards of serving as well as former presidents, vice president, prime ministers, ministers, chief ministers, judges of the Supreme Court and high courts, bureaucrats and commissioned military officers.

The bench comprising Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justices Arijit Pasayat, C.K. Thakkar, R.V. Raveendran and Dalveer Bhandari also sought a review every five years of the effect of the law on society.

The bench ruled that the quantum of 27 percent quota for OBCs was not illegal. The delegation of power to center to determine OBCs was valid, the bench said. The 93rd constitutional amendment act, which was the basis of law providing 27 percent reservation in aided institutions, was not violative of the basic structure of the constitution, the court said.

Regarding quota in private unaided institutions, while four judges left the issue open, one viewed it as violative of the basic structure of the constitution.

The bench also agreed to a petition from Youth for Equality that reservation quota should not be enforced in perpetuity. It should be reviewed constantly and statistics should be taken for that, the bench said. No reservation should be given to elected representatives of Parliament and state legislatures, the judges said.

Human Resources Development Minister Arjun Singh, who had championed the OBC reservation, hailed the verdict as “historic.” “This is a historic judgment. Hundreds of students belonging to the OBC category will benefit by it,” he said.

Welcoming the judgment, Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss said: “We welcome the verdict of the Supreme Court. It is a historical verdict, but at the same time we are disappointed over the exclusion of the creamy layer. We would take up this issue with like minded parties as well as within the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and the Cabinet,” the minister told reporters here.

Asked how the government planned to increase the infrastructure to accommodate the hike in the number of seats in higher educational institutions, the minister said the ministry has held a series of meetings on the matter. “We have not had time to study the verdict. Once we get it, we will study the implications,” Ramadoss said. He said though the government was interested in inviting private participation in medical education, it would not compromise on quality. “We would like foreign universities like Harvard to come and set up schools here, but we don’t want commercialization of education.”

There is evidence quotas have made some people more acutely conscious of caste differences in India. Some communities have marched through the streets demanding to be considered “backward,” so as to qualify for quotas. More than 20 people were killed last year during protests by an ethnic group demanding they be deemed an underprivileged tribe.

Critics also say that admitting students by any criteria other than intellectual merit will inevitably degrade educational standards.

— With input from agencies