Supreme Court stands firm by March 11 judgment on assessing OBC creamy layer policy

The Hindu · Krishnadas Rajagopal · 2026-11-06 05:47 UTC

SC maintains March 2026 verdict on OBC creamy layer non-retroactive, while clarifying implications for 2025 batch and policy timelines.

The Supreme Court on Friday (November 6, 2026) stood firm by its March 11, 2026 judgment, which upheld the assessment of the OBC non-creamy layer status as per a 1993 Office Memorandum, which excluded parental salary income and agricultural income from the income/wealth test.

A Bench of Justices P.S. Narasimha and R. Mahadevan did not agree with the government’s plea for a “reasonable time” of two years to undertake the necessary exercise of establishing equivalence of posts after consulting stakeholders and formulating an appropriate and uniform policy/mechanism for determination of OBC creamy layer status.

The court clarified that although the result of the Civil Service Examination 2025 was declared on March 6, 2026, the services had still not been allocated to the successful candidates. It said that since the process of allocation was pending, there would be no reasonable justification to defer the implementation of the March 11 judgment. It said the creamy layer principle, as interpreted in the judgment, would govern the allocation of services of OBC candidates selected through the Civil Service Examination 2025.

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