Sub-classification Doesn't Question Reservation's Success, Ensures Fair Share For Marginalised Within Backwards : CJI BR Gavai

Chief Justice of India BR Gavai opined that the principle of subclassification within the quotas for Scheduled Castes does not question the success or relevance of reservation and that it ensures that the marginalised within the backward classes get their due share.

Last year, a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, in State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh, had held that subclassification of SCs/STs was permissible to give separate quotas for more backwards. Justice Gavai, who had written a concurring judgment, had also expressed the need to apply the concept of 'creamy layer' to SCs/STs to exclude those who have benefited out of reservations from affirmative action.

Speaking at the Oxford Union on the topic “From Representation to Realization: Embodying the Constitution's Promise”, CJI Gavai on June 10 said that last year, the Supreme Court of India had upheld the principle of sub-classification within quotas for Scheduled Castes. 

"This was not to question the relevance or success of reservations, but to ensure that the most marginalized within marginalized groups receive their fair share," he said.

CJI Gavai started his lecture by saying that it was only due to the Constitution that a person like him, who belong to a group which was once considered untouchable, could rise to the high office.

"At the Oxford Union today, I stand before you to say: for India's most vulnerable citizens, the Constitution is not merely a legal charter or a political framework. It is a feeling, a lifeline, a quiet revolution etched in ink. In my own journey, from a municipal school to the Office of the Chief Justice of India, it has been a guiding force," he said.

CJI Gavai referred to Dr.Ambedkar's ideas on the necessity of representation. In an unequal society, Dr.Ambedkar believed, democracy cannot survive unless power is also divided among communities, not just among institutions. Representation, therefore, was a mechanism of redistributing power, not only between the legislature, executive, and judiciary, but among social groups that had been denied a share for centuries.

After the Constitution of India came into force, the idea of representation began to take concrete shape through the implementation of quotas in political offices, government employment, and later, in educational institutions. CJI said that these constitutional guarantees reflect a vision of substantive equality, which goes beyond formal equality and requires the State to take positive action to correct historical disadvantages.

Over a time, various mechanisms of affirmative action have been employed, such as reservations in job and employment, reservations in promotions, preferential treatment in appointments, age and eligibility relaxations, and scholarships, all designed to break the cycle of exclusion.

He said that the idea of representation has been extended to other vulnerable groups such as transgender persons and persons with disabilities. In this context, he referred to the Supreme Court's judgment in the NALSA case, as well as the judgments mandating reasonable accomodation for persons with disabilities.

He also mentioned the Supreme Court's judgments for granting permanent commission for women officers in armed forces as well as the Constitutional amendment for women's reservation in legislative bodies.

"The true beauty of Indian democracy lies in this: even as we commemorate 75 years of the Constitution, we continue to reflect, renew, and reimagine how to deepen and expand the meaning of representation," he said.

"In closing, I am reminded of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's seminal essay, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” To that, I offer my own reflection: Yes, the subaltern can speak—and they have been speaking all along. The question is no longer whether they can speak, but whether society is truly listening," he said in conclusion.