“Reservation Like Train Compartment…”: Supreme Court Judge’s Big Remark

A Supreme Court judge stated today that caste-based reservation in the nation resembles a train compartment, and those who enter this compartment are unwilling to allow others to join. Justice Surya Kant, who is set to become Chief Justice later this year, made his remarks while presiding over a case concerning reservations for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in Maharashtra’s local body elections.

The most recent local body elections in Maharashtra took place in 2016-2017. The main reason for the postponement in filling positions in the legal battle regarding the quota for candidates from Other Backward Classes (OBCs). In 2021, the Supreme Court annulled a Maharashtra government ordinance that aimed to enforce a 27 percent quota for OBCs.

The court established a three-part test: (1) creating a specific commission to carry out thorough, real-time empirical research on the characteristics and effects of backwardness in local entities of the state, (2) determining the percentage of reservation that needs to be allocated in each local body based on the Commission’s recommendations, (3) the overall reservation for SCs/STs/OBCs must not surpass 50 percent. Since that time, setbacks in data gathering and legal proceedings have hindered efforts to conduct local body elections in the state.

Advocate Indira Jaising, appearing for the petitioner, told the court that despite the identification of OBCs during delimitation, Maharashtra was not using the data for the local body election. She stressed the need to hold elections for local bodies soon and alleged that the state government was running local bodies unilaterally through handpicked officials.

Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for a petitioner in the same matter, told the court that within the OBCs, politically backward and socially backward classes should be identified for the purpose of reservations. Justice Surya Kant then said, “Reservation in the country has become like train compartments, people who have got in don’t want to let others come in. This is the principle of inclusivity.

Governments are duty-bound to identify more classes. There are politically, economically and socially deprived people. Why should they not get the benefit (of reservation)? Only a few families and groups are getting the benefit,” he added. The court will hear the matter again later in the day.

Interestingly, the train compartment metaphor was used by Justice BR Gavai, who takes over as Chief Justice later this month, in his judgment that said the sub-classification of SC/ST categories is permissible and states can create these sub-classifications. “I find that the attitude of the categories in the Presidential List opposing such a sub-classification is that of a person in the general compartment of the train. Firstly, the persons outside the compartment struggled to get into the general compartment. However, once they get inside it, they make every attempt possible to prevent the persons outside such a compartment from entering it,” Justice Gavai said.

The senior judge’s comments arrive at a moment when the Centre has chosen to incorporate caste information in the upcoming Census. The BJP and its allies claim that this action will assist in identifying underprivileged groups and support affirmative measures. Opposition parties had long been calling for a caste Census.

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