Supreme Court upholds validity of Tamil Nadu’s Arunthathiyar quota law

• A majority judgment of the Supreme Court recently has backed the constitutional validity of a Tamil Nadu law that offered preferential treatment among the Scheduled Castes (SCs) to socially and educationally backward Arunthathiyars.

Highlights:

• A seven-judge Bench, in a 6:1 ratio, held that sub-categorisation within a class was a Constitutional requirement to secure substantive equality.
• The principle of sub-classification will be applicable to the SCs if the social positions of the constituents among the castes/groups is not comparable.
• The Tamil Nadu State Legislature had enacted the Tamil Nadu Arunthathiyars Reservation Act, 2009, to provide the Arunthathiyars reservation in appointments or posts in State services on a preferential basis among the SCs.
• The Act defined Arunthathiyars to include the castes Arunthathiyar, Chakkiliyan, Madari, Madiga, Pagadi, Thoti, and Adi Andhra — from the list of 76 SCs notified by the President under Article 341 of the Constitution.
• Section 3 of the Act stipulated that 16% of the seats reserved for the SCs in educational institutions should be offered to the Arunthathiyars, if available, having regard to the social and educational backwardness of the community.
• Section 4 makes a similar provision for the Arunthathiyars in the recruitment to government posts.
• The batch of matters challenging the Tamil Nadu Act was tagged with a batch challenging a similar law in Punjab, which gave preference to Balmikis and Mazhabi Sikhs among the SCs.
• A Constitution Bench of five judges referred the case to a Constitution Bench of seven judges in August 2020 for an authoritative pronouncement on the question whether States could sub-classify SCs

Prelims Takeaway

• Reservation