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"The question that will have to be posed is, whether equal treatment to unequals in the category of Scheduled Castes would advance the constitutional objective of equality or would thwart it?", Justice Gavai has asked
State must evolve a policy for identifying the creamy layer even from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes so as exclude them from the benefit of affirmative action, Justice BR Gavai has said.
"In my view, only this and this alone can achieve the real equality as enshrined under the Constitution", the Supreme Court's judge has said in his separate judgment holding sub-classification of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes on account of reservations is constitutionally permissible.
Justice Gavai has further clarified the criteria for exclusion of the creamy layer from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes for the purpose of affirmative action could be different from the criteria as applicable to the Other Backward Classes.
The top court's judge has observed that the people from these categories who after having availed the benefits of reservation and have reached the high echelons in life cannot be considered to be socially, economically and educationally backward so as to continue availing the benefit of affirmative action. They have already reached a stage where on their own accord they should walk out of the special provisions and give way to the deserving and needy, the judge adds.
"..putting the children of the parents from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes who on account of benefit of reservation have reached a high position and ceased to be socially, economically and educationally backward and the children of parents doing manual work in the villages in the same category would defeat the constitutional mandate...", the judgment adds.
Noting that disparities and social discrimination, which is highly prevalent in the rural areas, start diminishing when one travels to the urban and metropolitan areas, the judge has said, "I have no hesitation to hold that putting a child studying in St. Paul's High School and St. Stephen's College and a child studying in a small village in the backward and remote area of the country in the same bracket would obliviate the equality principle enshrined in the Constitution."
As a part of the same judgment, Justice Pankaj Mithal of the Supreme Court of India has observed that in primitive India there was no existence of any caste system as people were categorised according to their profession, talent, qualities and nature.
Terming the caste system to be DYSFUNCTIONAL, the supreme court judge has noted that children of Brahmins started calling themselves as Brahmins, irrespective of whether they possessed the corresponding qualities or not and this was similar with the children of other varnas also who adopted the varna of their father ignoring their own nature, talent and qualities.
Case Title: State of Punjab vs. Davinder Singh
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