Constitution (Seventy‑seventh Amendment) Act, 1995

The petitioners, railway clerks belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, challenged a Railway Board letter dated 9 October 2003 that applied the reservation policy to posts created by a cadre‑restructuring exercise in Group C and D. The Central Administrative Tribunal had struck down the reservation clau…

The Supreme Court examined a slew of petitions seeking a referral of the M. Nagaraj judgment to a larger bench, focusing on the validity of its requirement that States collect quantifiable data on the backwardness of Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) for promotion reservations. The Court held that while t…

The petitioners challenged the Constitution (Seventy‑Seventh), (Eighty‑First), (Eighty‑Second) and (Eighty‑Fifth) Amendment Acts, which inserted Article 16(4A) (reservation in promotion for SC/STs with consequential seniority), Article 16(48) (exclusion of carry‑forward vacancies from the 50% ceiling) and a proviso to …

The case concerned the validity of a 1997 Office Memorandum that withdrew an earlier 1970 order which had relaxed qualifying marks for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates in departmental promotion examinations. The appellants argued that the withdrawal violated the constitutional provisions allowing reservat…

The Karnataka government enacted the Karnataka Extension of Consequential Seniority to Government Servants Promoted on the Basis of Reservation Act, 2018 to grant consequential seniority to SC/ST promotees, after the earlier 2002 Act was struck down in *B K Pavitra I* for lacking the data required under *M. Nagaraj*. T…

The Constitution (One Hundred and Third Amendment) Act, 2019 amended Articles 15 and 16 of the Indian Constitution to empower the State to provide up to 10% reservation for 'economically weaker sections' (EWS) of citizens, excluding Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and the non-creamy layer of Other Backward Classes.…

The Supreme Court, by a 6:1 majority, overruled its earlier decision in E.V. Chinnaiah v. State of Andhra Pradesh and held that sub-classification of Scheduled Castes for the purpose of reservation is constitutionally permissible. The Court examined whether the Scheduled Castes constitute a homogenous class under Artic…