On 11 March 2026, a two-judge bench held that creamy-layer status under the DoPT 1993 Office Memorandum cannot be determined solely on parental income; the status-based and income-based gates must be applied as distinct, and the DoPT clarificatory letter of 14 October 2004 was held ultra vires the substantive 1993 OM framework.
On 7 November 2022, a five-judge Constitution Bench held by 3:2 that the Constitution (One Hundred and Third Amendment) Act, 2019 — which had inserted clauses authorising the State to provide reservation of up to 10 per cent for economically weaker sections, additional to the existing reservation under Articles 15(4), 15(5) and 16(4) — did not breach the basic structure of the Constitution. Justices Maheshwari, Trivedi and Pardiwala wrote separate concurring opinions for the majority; Justice Ravindra Bhat wrote a dissent on behalf of himself and Chief Justice U.U. Lalit. A digest of the bench, the holdings, the dissent, and the doctrinal arc of reservation jurisprudence after the EWS judgment.
On 26 September 2018, a five-judge Constitution Bench held that the creamy-layer principle applies to reservation in promotion for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes — and read down the requirement, articulated in M. Nagaraj (2006), that States collect quantifiable data to demonstrate backwardness of SC/STs as a condition for providing such reservation. The unanimous judgment of Justice Nariman recalibrates the doctrinal architecture between Indra Sawhney, M. Nagaraj, and the SC/ST promotion reservation regime. A digest of the question, the holding, the doctrinal logic, and the lineage.
On 19 October 2006, a five-judge Constitution Bench upheld the constitutional validity of the 77th, 81st, 82nd and 85th Amendments — which together had inserted Articles 16(4A) and 16(4B) to provide for reservation in promotion for SC/ST and the carry-forward of unfilled reserved positions. The disposition articulated the three-pronged test that has governed promotion-reservation policy ever since: backwardness, inadequacy of representation, and administrative efficiency. A digest of the holding, the three-prong architecture, and the relationship with the *Indra Sawhney* and *Jarnail Singh* lines.