In a landmark decision on Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled that states were constitutionally empowered to create sub-classifications within the Scheduled Castes, which formed a socially heterogeneous class, for granting reservation for the uplift of castes that were socially and educationally more backward.

Justice Pankaj Mithal, a Supreme Court justice, on Thursday referred to a 1961 letter by Jawahar Lal Nehru in which the former prime minister condemned the practice of extending reservations and benefits to any tribe or group.

Justice Mithal said: "Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, in his letter dated June 27, 1961, addressed to all the chief ministers of all the states, lamented upon the habit of giving reservations and privileges to any caste or group and expressed that such practice ought to be given up and emphasis to help the citizens on economic considerations and not on caste basis and that the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes do deserve help but not in the shape of any kind of reservation, more particularly in services."

In his letter, Nehru said, "I want my country to be a first-class country in everything. The moment we encourage the second-rate, we are lost."

"The only real way to help a backward group is to give opportunities of good education, this includes technical education, which is becoming more and more important. Everything else is a provision of some kind of crutches, which do not add to the strength or health of the body," the letter read.

While concurring with the majority verdict on the right of states to sub-categorise Scheduled Castes for granting quotas, Justice Mithal said the history of "reservation" in the country showed that tremendous effort had been put in by all three organs of State to bring about social justice by promoting the reservation policy.

The top court judge said enough time and energy had been spent by all three wings of State in streamlining the process of reservation and to evolve a flawless mechanism.

"It is a matter of record that in pro-reservation agitations and anti-reservation agitations, the peace and tranquillity of the entire country, at times, stood disturbed. Especially, during the anti-Mandal Commission agitation somewhere in 1990, most of the states witnessed large scale disturbances," Justice Mithal said.

"The turmoil so created by such agitations and demonstrations particularly, in the months of August-November of 1990, is the ample indication of the widespread violence," he said. He added that the government had used caste as the basis for uplift rather than identifying the class of people on the basis of vocation or their social and economic conditions who actually required help to be promoted to the level of the forward class.

"It is for this reason, today we are grappling with a situation of sub-classification of the castes notified for the purpose of reservation. The experience shows that the better of the class amongst the backwards eats up most of the vacancies/seats reserved leaving the most backward with nothing in their hands," Justice Mithal said.

The top court verdict came on references to revisit the five-judge constitution bench judgement of 2004 in the case of EV Chinnaiah vs State of Andhra Pradesh in which it was held that Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes were homogeneous groups and states could not further sub-classify them to grant quota inside quota for more deprived and weaker castes in these groups.

(With PTI Inputs)