On 10 April 2008, a five-judge Constitution Bench upheld the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act 2006 — providing 27% OBC reservation in centrally-funded higher education institutions including the IITs, IIMs, AIIMS and central universities — together with the 93rd Constitutional Amendment that inserted Article 15(5). The Bench extended the Indra Sawhney creamy-layer doctrine to OBC reservation in higher education, preserved the 50% reservation ceiling and required periodic review and quantifiable data. The validity of Article 15(5) for private unaided institutions was left for Pramati (2014) to settle.
On 6 May 2014, a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court — in a unanimous judgment authored by Justice A.K. Patnaik — upheld both the 86th Constitutional Amendment Act 2002 (inserting Article 21A) and the 93rd Constitutional Amendment Act 2005 (inserting Article 15(5)). The Bench held that the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009 and the special-provisions power under Article 15(5) do not apply to minority educational institutions, whether aided or unaided. Read with Society for Unaided Private Schools of Rajasthan v. Union of India (2012) — which had already carved out the minority unaided exemption — Pramati completes a two-step minority exemption from the post-Article 21A reservation architecture. A close reading of Patnaik J's reasoning on basic structure, the Article 30(1) minority autonomy core, the relationship with T.M.A. Pai and Inamdar, the legislative reversal of Inamdar's holding on private unaided reservation, and the live September 2025 reference questioning the Pramati exemption.