We will file review petition against top court’s verdict on SC/ST subclassification: Chirag Paswan

Patna (Bihar) [India], August 4 (ANI): Union Minister Chirag Paswan expressed his disagreement with the Supreme Court’s observation on creamy layer among Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, and said that the Lok Jandhakti Party (Ram Vilas) will be filing a review peition against the ruling.

Emphasising that Dalit people in various spheres of life still face untouchability, Paswan said that the basis of giving reservation to Scheduled Caste is ‘untouchability,’ so there is no point of creamy layer in it.

“We disagree with the observation of the Supreme Court and we have registered this disagreement prominently. We are clear about this that the base of the Scheduled Caste is untouchability. It does not have an educational or economic basis. In such a situation, there can be no provision of creamy layer in it, reservation within the reservation is not correct, because even today the example of a Dalit youth is given who is prevented from riding a mare,” Chirag Paswan told reporters on Sunday.

“There are many such big names, who are on high posts, but even after they go to the temple, the temple is washed with Ganga water, so even today discrimination takes place based on untouchability… We, LJP (Ram Vilas) are also going to file a review petition in the Supreme Court regarding this matter,” he added.

The Supreme Court, in a landmark ruling on Thursday, ruled that states have the power to sub-classify SCs and STs and said that the authority concerned, while deciding if the class is adequately represented, must calculate adequacy based on effective and not quantitative representation.

The top court ruled by a majority judgement of 6:1, that sub-classification within the SCs and STs reservation is permissible. As many as six separate opinions were delivered in the case.

The judgement was delivered by the seven-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, which overruled earlier judgement in the EV Chinnaiah matter, which had held that sub-classification was not permissible because SC/STs form homogenous classes.

Besides CJI Chandrachud, other judges on the bench were Justices BR Gavai, Vikram Nath, Bela M Trivedi, Pankaj Mithal, Manoj Misra, and Satish Chandra Sharma.

Justice Bela M. Trivedi, in a dissenting opinion, said that she disagreed with the majority judgement that sub-classification within the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes is permissible.