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There was no caste system in primitive India and slowly the varna system prevalent was misconstrued to be a caste system, the top court's judge has said
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.
"Gita thus only promotes varna system which is different from present day caste system. It lays emphasis on abilities, qualities and consciousness of a person to have a balanced structure of society and to bring out the best in every person...", Justice Mithal has further observed.
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.
"Thus, there was no caste system in ancient India i.e., Bharat. The misconstruction of the varna system as a caste system was a social defect that crept in with time and was not considered to be good as it divided the society and brought about discrimination & inequality...", the judge has said in his separate but concurring judgment holding sub-classification of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes on account of reservations is constitutionally permissible.
Justice Mithal has concluded that the policy of reservation as enshrined under the Constitution and by its various amendments requires a fresh re-look and evolvement of other methods for helping and uplifting the depressed class or the downtrodden or the persons belonging to SC/ST/OBC communities.
It has been further suggested that any facility or privilege for the promotion of the SC/ST/OBCs has to be on a totally different criteria other than the caste may be on economic or financial factors, status of living, vocation and the facilities available to each one of them based upon their place of living.
"The reservation, if any, has to be limited only for the first generation or one generation and if any generation in the family has taken advantage of the reservation and have achieved higher status, the benefit of reservation would not be logically available to the second generation...", the judgment adds.
Case Title: State of Punjab vs. Davinder Singh
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