On the 1st of August, 2024, 7 judge constitutional bench of the Supreme court with a majority of 6:1 gave a landmark judgement where it ruled that there is a necessity to make subclassification within the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.This ruling overturned a 2004 decision in the case of E V Chinnaiah vs. State of Andhra Pradesh, which had previously prohibited sub-classification for reservation purposes. The supreme court came up with a judgement that sub-categorization of SCs and STs is legally permissible to provide separate quotas to more disadvantaged groups within the SCs and STs.
This judgement made a tectonic shift in the Indian society discourse. After 3 months of the historic judgement, on the 18th of October, the Haryana CM Nayab Singh Saini in his first cabinet has announced the immediate implementation of the sub-categorisation of SCs and STs in the state of Haryana. Haryana CM Nayab Singh Saini announced”In compliance with the Supreme Court’s ruling, we have decided to implement the sub-categorization of Scheduled Castes starting today.”
Currently, there is a 15% reservation for SC and a 7.5% reservation for ST communities. With the new decision, the Haryana administration will be able to bring up sub-categorization within the SCs and STs and allocate specific quotas within this 22.5% reservation to those sub-groups within SCs and STs that have lesser representation in employment and education.
It must be noted that BJP Haryana has previously promised to implement the Supreme Court recommendation of making sub-categorization within the SCs and STs.
https://x.com/Mayawati/status/1847225364264755300
Mayawati criticises this decision of the Haryana Govt. She took to X and wrote “The decision by the new BJP government in Haryana to implement sub-categorization within the reservation for the Scheduled Castes (SC) community, effectively introducing a quota within the quota, is a conspiracy to further divide Dalits and keep them in conflict with each other. This is not only anti-Dalit but also a strongly anti-reservation decision.”