Important decision of Supreme Court: OBC creamy layer status cannot be decided only by the income of parents.

New Delhi, March 12. The Supreme Court has said in an important judgment that the creamy layer status of Other Backward Classes (OBC) cannot be determined on the basis of parents’ income alone, and treating children of Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) and private sector employees differently from children of government employees for eligibility for reservation is wrongful discrimination.

According to a report in the English daily ‘Times of India’, the Supreme Court bench said, ‘Determining creamy layer status on the basis of income bracket alone, without reference to the category of post and status parameters, is clearly unsustainable in law.’

According to reports, a bench of Justices PS Narasimha and R Mahadevan delivered the verdict while upholding the decisions of the Madras, Kerala and Delhi High Courts, each of which had examined the eligibility of candidates seeking OBC (non-creamy layer) benefit in the Civil Services Examination. Several orders of the High Court were given in favor of candidates who had said that they were wrongly placed in the creamy layer because their parents worked in PSUs, banks or the private sector.

The apex court clearly said in its argument, ‘The purpose of excluding the creamy layer is to ensure that the socially advanced people within the OBCs are not able to take advantage of the benefits actually meant for the backward people. Its purpose is not to create artificial differences between equal people of the same social class.