The Hindu : National : Plea to exclude "creamy layer"

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 07, 2006

National

National

Plea to exclude "creamy layer"

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi: The Supreme Court will hear in July a public interest petition seeking a direction to the Tamil Nadu Government to implement the directions of the apex court in the 1992 Mandal judgment — to identify and exclude the "creamy layer" from among the backward class communities in the State.

When the petition came up for admission on Friday before a Bench of Justice Ruma Pal and Justice A.K. Mathur, the Bench told counsel that it would hear the matter in July and adjourned the hearing till then.

In its petition, Voice (Consumer Care) Council said that as per the Mandal judgment, the Centre, the States and the Union Territories were directed to constitute a permanent body for entertaining, examining and recommending for inclusion in the lists of other backward classes. The body could also study complaints of over/under inclusion. The advice tendered by such body would be binding on the government.

The petitioner said Tamil Nadu had not followed the directions in that judgment even though many years had passed. The benefits of reservation to the backward classes had been continued to them in education and in appointments in State services without excluding the "creamy layer" and such benefits had not been passed on to the deserving persons belonging to such backward classes.

It said that if reservation was provided without removing the creamy layer it would have a counter effect on the very basis of the constitutional right. Not implementing the directions of the apex court had caused great injustice to the really backward classes as the reservation benefits were being taken away by affluent persons in such backward classes.

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