The Supreme Court has rejected the batch of review petitions filed against its earlier judgment of August 1, allowing sub-classification of SC/STs.
A seven-judge bench of the top court, led by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud, rejected the review pleas.
The apex court did not find any merit in the batch of petitions seeking review of the apex court's earlier judgment.
"Permission to file the review petitions granted. Applications for listing the review petitions in open court are rejected. Delay condoned. Having perused the review petitions, there is no error apparent on the face of the record. No case for review under Order XLVII Rule 1 of the Supreme Court Rules 2013 has been established. The review petitions are, therefore, dismissed," the apex court had said in its order on September 24, which was uploaded on Friday on the SC's website.
The other six judges who were a part of the bench were Justices BR Gavai, Vikram Nath, Bela M Trivedi, Pankaj Mithal, Manoj Misra and Satish Chandra Sharma.
The apex court rejected the batch of pleas, saying no case for review was made out by the petitioners.
On August 1, the seven-judge Constitution Bench had overruled the 2005 judgment of EV Chinnaiah v. State of Andhra Pradesh which had held that sub-classification of SC/STs is contrary to Article 341 of the Constitution which confers right on the President to prepare the list of SC/STs.
A sole judge, Justice Trivedi, had dissented from the majority and ruled that such sub-classification is not permissible.
The apex court had pronounced the judgement in connection with a case concerning the validity of the Punjab Scheduled Caste and Backward Classes (Reservation in Services) Act, 2006, which involved the sub-classification of reserved category communities.
It had ruled that SCs are not a homegenous group and governments can sub-classify them to give more weightage in 15% reservation to those who suffered more discrimination among SCs.
"The members of SC/ST are not often able to climb up the ladder due to the systemic discrimination faced. Article 14 permits sub-classification of caste. Court must check if a class is homogeneous or and a class not integrated for a purpose can be further classified," the bench, led by CJI Chandrachud, had said in the verdict.
The apex court had also upheld the validity of laws which provide for such sub-classification in Punjab, Tamil Nadu and other states.