Chebrolu Leela Prasad Rao v. State of Andhra Pradesh (2021): 100% ST reservation struck down

In 1986, and again by notification in 2000, the State of Andhra Pradesh purported to reserve every single teaching post in the State's tribal Scheduled Areas for candidates belonging to the Scheduled Tribes. The instrument relied on the Governor's special power under Paragraph 5(1) of the Fifth Schedule to the Constitution, which allows the Governor to direct that an Act of Parliament or the State Legislature shall not apply, or shall apply with modifications, to a Scheduled Area. The Andhra Pradesh High Court upheld the measure. In Chebrolu Leela Prasad Rao v. State of Andhra Pradesh, a five-judge Constitution Bench reversed that view and held that no provision of the Constitution permits 100% reservation of any category of posts to the total exclusion of all others.

The facts in brief

The Scheduled Areas of Andhra Pradesh (later, after bifurcation, also of Telangana) are tribal regions governed by the protective regime of the Fifth Schedule. To staff schools in these areas, the State issued G.O.Ms. No. 3 of 2000, which reserved 100% of the posts of teachers in the Scheduled Areas for local Scheduled Tribe candidates. The avowed object was to ensure that teachers were drawn from the local tribal community, who would reside in and understand the area.

A batch of appeals challenged the notification. Open-category candidates, and candidates of other reserved categories, contended that a blanket 100% reservation extinguished their right to be considered for public employment in those areas altogether. The matter, raising questions about the reach of the Governor's Fifth Schedule power and the limits of reservation, was referred to a Constitution Bench.

The question

Several questions were referred, but two were central. First, can the Governor, exercising the power under Para 5(1) of the Fifth Schedule, make a provision for 100% reservation — and does that power extend to overriding or curtailing the fundamental rights in Part III, in particular the equality guarantees of Articles 14 and 16? Second, even assuming some reservation in the Scheduled Areas is permissible, can it lawfully take the form of 100% reservation, or is it constrained by the ceiling on reservations recognised in Indra Sawhney v. Union of India?

What the Court held

The Constitution Bench struck the notification down. It held that 100% reservation is impermissible: the Constitution does not allow the whole of a class or category of posts to be reserved to the total exclusion of everyone else. Reservation under Article 16(4) is an enabling provision designed to bring about adequate representation of the backward classes; it is not a device to monopolise public employment and shut out every other citizen.

On the ceiling, the Court reaffirmed that the State was bound by the dictum in Indra Sawhney and the line of authority holding that reservations must not, save in extraordinary circumstances, exceed 50%. A measure that allocated every post to one category was the antithesis of that limit and could not be reconciled with it.

On the Governor's power, the Court drew a sharp distinction. Para 5(1) of the Fifth Schedule permits the Governor to apply, not apply, or modify the operation of an existing law in a Scheduled Area. It does not authorise the Governor to make a wholly new law, and — critically — it does not place the Governor above Part III. The fundamental rights, including the equality code of Articles 14 and 16, continue to operate in the Scheduled Areas, and the Governor's notification could not be used to defeat them. The Court characterised the exercise as arbitrary, and imposed costs on the States for persisting in an illegal scheme that an earlier (1986) attempt had already foreshadowed.

Analysis

The judgment sits at the intersection of two strands of constitutional doctrine: the law of reservations and the special governance regime of the Fifth Schedule. On reservations, Chebrolu Leela Prasad Rao is a firm restatement that the 50% ceiling of Indra Sawhney is a real constraint, not an aspiration — a position later carried into the debate over the limits of affirmative action in cases such as Janhit Abhiyan v. Union of India and the reasoning on excessive quotas seen in Ashoka Kumar Thakur v. Union of India. By treating 100% reservation as the clearest possible breach of that ceiling, the Court left no doubt that the percentage is a structural feature of the equality guarantee.

The Fifth Schedule holding is the more novel contribution. It clarifies that the Governor's protective power is interpretive and modificatory in character — a tool to tailor the application of laws to tribal conditions — rather than a self-standing legislative power that floats free of Part III. The protective purpose of the Fifth Schedule cannot be inverted into a licence to extinguish the rights of others. That said, the judgment has drawn academic criticism for its observations on tribal culture and for some inconsistency in how it treated the relationship between the Schedule and fundamental rights; the core operative holding, however, is unambiguous.

Why it matters

For administrators in Scheduled Areas, the case sets a hard ceiling: local-cadre and tribal-preference schemes may pursue adequate representation, but they cannot reserve everything. The ruling also recalibrated expectations about the Governor's Fifth Schedule power, confirming that it is bounded by the same constitutional discipline that governs ordinary State action. More broadly, by anchoring the result in Indra Sawhney, the Court reinforced the 50% rule as the load-bearing limit in Indian reservation jurisprudence — the same limit that frames later disputes over domicile and local preference, as in Pradeep Jain v. Union of India, and over State quotas in local bodies, as in Gade Ramana Reddy v. State of Telangana.

Related on Valkya

• Indra Sawhney v. Union of India
• Janhit Abhiyan v. Union of India: the EWS quota
• Ashoka Kumar Thakur v. Union of India: OBC reservation in higher education
• Pradeep Jain v. Union of India: domicile-based reservation

Sources

• LiveLaw, "100% Reservation Unreasonable: Questions Referred And Answers Given By Constitution Bench"
• Bar & Bench, "No rhyme or reason for state government to resort to 100% reservation: Supreme Court imposes ₹5 lakh costs on AP and Telangana"
• Verdictum, "Granting 100% Reservation To Scheduled Tribes Was An Illegal Exercise: SC Reiterates"