Why has the creamy layer debate returned to court?

Fresh petitions before the Supreme Court are seeking to extend the creamy layer principle to SC/ST reservations, based on a misreading of the 2024 Davinder Singh judgment. The move revives a decades-old debate about whether income can serve as a proxy for caste-based disadvantage, and whether social justice can be trapped inside an economic test.

On March 10, the Supreme Court issued notice to the Centre and all States on a public interest litigation filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay seeking the exclusion of a “creamy layer” from SC/ST reservations. A separate plea, filed in February, sought an income-based prioritisation mechanism within these quotas. Both petitions claim constitutional sanction from the same source: the seven-judge bench decision in State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh (2024).