SUBSTANTIVE EQUALITY AND RESERVATION JURISPRUDENCE: A CRITICAL COMMENTARY ON STATE OF PUNJAB V. DAVINDER SINGH [(2024) 4 SCC 869]

This commentary examines the Supreme Court's recent decision in State of Punjab v Davinder Singh (2024), wherein a 7-judge Constitution Bench which delivered the order in a 6:1 majority, had set aside E.V. Chinnaiah and upheld the State's ability to sub-classify SCs for reservation. It explores the evolution of the Reservation Jurisprudence from Indra Sawhney to the homogeneity doctrine to examine the majority's embrace of substantive equality and the fiction that there are no differences among the SC communities, with regards to Article 341 . It brings to the fore the Court's emphasis on empirical conditionality and proportionality, which requires to be quantified in terms of data to justify sub-classification and its political misuse and thus renders the process judicially reviewable. The commentary also highlights the important concurring views of Justice Gavai who called for the extension of the principle of creamy layer to SCs and STs. It further analyses the judgment restoring the concept of reservation law as an evidence-based, accountability-based tool of transformational constitutionalism that is supposed to benefit the weakest of the weak and is sensitive to the limits of institutions that are asserted in dissent.