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Union of India & Ors. v. Rohith Nathan and Anr., Etc.

Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 230Decided 11 Mar 2026
C.A. No.-002827-002829 - 2018 (with connected Civil Appeal Nos. 3130-3141 of 2024 and Civil Appeal arising out of SLP(C) No. 17651 of 2022)
Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha · Justice R. Mahadevan · Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah

Background

This judgment decided three connected batches of appeals concerning how the government determines "creamy layer" status (which disqualifies socially-advanced OBC candidates from reservation benefits) for candidates whose parents worked in PSUs or private companies, as opposed to government service. Several successful Civil Services Examination candidates were denied OBC reservation benefits because their parents' salary income (from PSU or private employment) exceeded a prescribed ceiling under a 2004 clarificatory letter, even though similarly-placed government employees' children were not assessed the same way. The Central Administrative Tribunal and the High Courts of Madras, Delhi, and Kerala had ruled in favour of the candidates in these underlying disputes, and the Union of India appealed those rulings to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court upheld the High Courts' rulings, holding that treating the children of PSU/private-sector employees differently from children of government employees, by including their parents' entire salary income for the creamy-layer income test without first establishing an equivalence of posts, amounted to unconstitutional "hostile discrimination" between similarly situated members of the same backward class, violating Articles 14, 15, and 16. Relying on landmark precedents including Indra Sawhney and State of Kerala v. N.M. Thomas, the Court reasoned that the purpose of excluding the "creamy layer" is only to prevent genuinely socially-advanced OBC members from cornering reservation benefits, not to create artificial distinctions between equally-placed persons based merely on their employer type. All the Union of India's appeals were dismissed, and the government was directed to reconsider the candidates' (and intervenors') claims per the principles laid down and implement the decision within six months, including creating supernumerary posts where needed to accommodate affected candidates.

Lesson Learnt

Government policies for determining "creamy layer" eligibility for reservation benefits must apply a rational, equivalence-based test rather than treating PSU or private-sector employees' children less favourably than government employees' children purely because of the source of parental income: arbitrary classifications within the same backward class violate the constitutional guarantee of equality.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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