Attorney General K K Venugopal told a five-judge Constitution bench, headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, that there is no judgment which says that affluent people of the SC/ST community can be denied quota benefits by applying creamy layer concept. He was responding to a question whether the creamy layer concept can be applied to exclude persons who have come up to ensure that the backward among the SC/ST communities can reap the benefits of quota.
The top law officer said, even if some people of the community have come up, the stigma of caste and backwardness is still attached to them. He said, the question of excluding certain class of SC/ST has to be decided by the President and Parliament and that this exercise is not open to judiciary.
The bench is examining whether the apex court’s 12-year-old verdict that had dealt with the issue of ‘creamy layer’ for reservations to SC/ST categories in government job promotions needs to be re-visited by a seven-judge bench.
