The Supreme Court on Friday, November 6, pronounced judgment clarifying its March 11, 2026 ruling on the OBC creamy layer, holding that a candidate's creamy-layer status cannot be determined solely on the basis of the parents' salary income and that the category of the post held by the parents must also be considered, LiveLaw reported. A bench of Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Justice R. Mahadevan delivered the clarification in Union of India v. Rohith Nathan and Another.

Source: LiveLaw

The Court clarified that the March judgment applies to the parties before it and that seniority and promotions will not be reopened. Pending cases are to be decided by the courts concerned on their own merits and entitlement, and the time to comply with the March judgment has been extended by eight weeks, LawChakra reported. A copy of the judgment is awaited.

Source: LawChakra

What the March 11 ruling had held

By its March 11 judgment, the Supreme Court held that salary income alone cannot determine whether a candidate belongs to the OBC creamy layer, and that the status and category of the post held by the candidate's parent or parents are also essential factors. The dispute concerned the interpretation of the Office Memorandum dated August 8, 1993 and a clarificatory letter dated October 14, 2004. The Court held that the 2004 clarification could not introduce a substantive condition absent from the 1993 policy, and that treating children of PSU or private-sector employees differently from similarly placed government employees, by counting their parents' salary, could amount to hostile discrimination violating Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution.

In its clarification application, the Union Government said it was not seeking a review of the March 11 judgment, but clarification of its temporal operation and implementation. It told the Court that between 2016 and 2025, more than 5.69 lakh reserved vacancies, including 3.70 lakh OBC vacancies, were filled in Central ministries and departments, and warned that retrospective implementation could require reconsideration of Civil Services Examination service allocations made since 2012, unsettle seniority and promotions of serving officers, and affect lakhs of admissions made in higher educational institutions, as well as recruitments by 18 States and Union Territories that follow the 1993 Office Memorandum.

The Centre had sought two years to establish equivalence of posts in organisations such as PSUs, banks, universities and private entities with government posts, and to formulate a uniform mechanism for determining creamy-layer status where equivalence has not been established. It had also sought permission to finalise service allocation for 958 candidates recommended by the UPSC in the Civil Services Examination 2025. AglaSem News, summarising reports in The Hindu and Hindustan Times, said past appointments will not be reopened, while the March ruling will govern service allocation for the CSE 2025 batch.

Source: AglaSem News