Will the deserving person get his right? Will SC-ST reservation now get filtered benefits? Supreme Court’s notice increased the stir

News India Live, Digital Desk: Reservation in India has always been a topic which is discussed in every house and every street. But for some time now, a new and deep debate has started regarding ‘SC-ST reservation’. This is the debate of ‘creamy layer’. Recently, the Supreme Court, while hearing a petition, has issued a notice to the Central and State Governments and sought their opinion on this issue.

If understood in simple language, this whole matter is to see whether the reservation given to Dalits and tribals who have progressed a lot economically and socially, should be reduced to those people who are still left behind and deprived?

Why did this new movement start?
The case has its roots in a previous judgment by a seven-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court, in which the Court had held that states have the power to make ‘sub-classification’ within Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST). After this decision, the question arose whether, like the OBCs, those affluent families who have enjoyed the benefits of reservation for generations should also be excluded from the SC-ST category?

The court has now asked the governments what is their roadmap in this direction.

Who will benefit and who will suffer loss?
There are two views regarding this step of the Supreme Court:

• Argument of similarity: Many people believe that even within the SC-ST society, there is a large section which has not been able to take advantage of any scheme till date because only a few rich families take all the jobs and seats. For him this is ‘real social justice’.
• Identity and logic of conflict: On the other hand, some organizations and leaders are against this idea. He argues that SC-ST reservation is not just a program to eradicate poverty, but it is a fight for ‘representation’ against centuries of discrimination. They fear that with the arrival of the creamy layer, this community will be divided into pieces.

difficulties of governments
Politically, this is a ‘contentious’ or controversial issue for any government. The governments will have to tell the court whether they have really decided to remove this creamy layer or not. The strictness of the Supreme Court shows that now mere promises will not suffice, a solid legal framework will have to be created.

What is the way forward?
The issuance of the notice means that now the ball is in the government’s court. If the court issues strict guidelines on this, then the methods of applying for college admissions and government jobs may change in the future. This will have the biggest impact on those youth who come from affluent families and are taking advantage of reservation in this category.

In the end, this is not just a shuffle of papers. This is a test of the fundamental promise of our democracy that justice should reach the last person in the queue for development.