OBC Creamy Layer judgment: Centre asks for CSE 2025, 2026 to be exempted from income test decision
The Indian government has requested the Supreme Court to exempt the 2025 and 2026 Civil Service Examinations from a recent ruling on OBC creamy layer criteria. The Centre argues that applying the new income test interpretation retrospectively would disrupt ongoing recruitment processes.
Why it matters
This legal challenge impacts the recruitment process for thousands of government positions and the implementation of reservation policies in India.
The Union government has now moved applications seeking that the Supreme Court’s March judgement on using parents’ salaries and incomes to determine the creamy layer among the Other Backward Classes for reservations should not be applied retrospectively. The government has thus sought that the 2025 and 2026 Civil Service Examinations (CSE) processes be allowed to continue with the older interpretation on how to determine the creamy layer and asked the Supreme Court to clarify its March judgement with respect to its retrospective applicability.
The Centre, through the Department of Personnel and Training, has argued before the Supreme Court that the judgement’s application retrospectively would end up impacting lakhs of OBC recruitments and admissions already conducted as per the previous interpretation of the creamy layer criteria across Central government ministries, State government departments, and higher educational institutions across the country.
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