Thiruvananthapuram : In a milestone step toward social equality, the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld power of States to sub-classify and grant separate quotas for more backwards within the SC/ST categories for purpose of education and employment.
The apex court observation comes with a condition that the State in doing so cannot earmark 100% reservation for a sub-class. Also, the State is required to justify the sub-classification on basis of empirical data indicating inadequacy of representation of the sub-class.
The historic stand came from a 7-judge Constitution Bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justices BR Goval, Vikram Nath, Bela M Trivedi, Pankaj Mithal, Manoj M isra and Sathish Chandra Sharma.
The judgement will be pronounced tomorrow, 2 August.
