Supreme Court refuses to revisit OBC creamy layer ruling, says parents' salary cannot be counted mechanically

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to modify its March 11 judgment on the OBC creamy layer, rejecting the Centre’s applications and repeating that the salary income of parents cannot be mechanically included when deciding whether a candidate falls in the creamy layer.

The bench of Justices P S Narasimha and R Mahadevan said the interpretation of the government’s instructions, a 1993 Office Memorandum and a 2004 clarificatory letter, was not open to reconsideration and remains binding under Article 141 of the Constitution.

The dispute began with civil services candidates whom the Department of Personnel and Training denied OBC benefits, treating them as creamy layer because their parents earned salaries in public sector undertakings. They went to the Central Administrative Tribunal, and the Madras, Delhi and Kerala High Courts ruled in their favour. In March the Supreme Court dismissed the Centre’s appeals and gave it six months to act.

On Friday the bench said “the creamy layer principle, as interpreted in the said judgment, shall govern the allocation of services” for OBC candidates selected through the Civil Services Examination 2025, whose allocation is still pending. The ruling does not reopen completed selections, appointments or allocations, or disturb the seniority of other employees. Similar cases pending before courts and tribunals can be decided on their merits using the March interpretation.

The Centre had asked for two years to work out equivalence between posts in PSUs, banks and other bodies and government posts, and to build a uniform creamy layer mechanism. The court declined to set any timeline, saying these were matters for the executive and the legislature, and extended the time to comply by two months before disposing of the applications.