HYDERABAD: In a landmark move, the Telangana government has officially enforced the Telangana Scheduled Caste (Rationalisation of Reservation) Act, 2025, coinciding with the 134th birth anniversary of Dr BR Ambedkar.
It marks a significant step toward addressing intra-caste disparities within the Scheduled Caste (SC) community.
With this legislation, Telangana becomes the first State in the country to operationalise sub-categorisation of SC reservations, following the Supreme Court’s pivotal judgment in the State of Punjab & Others vs Davinder Singh & Others.
The judgment upheld the power of states to legislate separate quotas within the SC category.
The newly enacted law divides the existing 15 per cent SC reservation into three distinct groups based on population and socio-economic indicators:
Group 1: 1 per cent reservation for 15 castes (3.2% of SC population)
Group 2: 9 per cent reservation for 18 castes (62.74% of SC population)
Group 3: 5 per cent reservation for 26 castes (33.96% of SC population)
The quota restructuring follows the long-standing demand for equitable distribution of reservation benefits among all SC sub-castes, particularly from the Madiga Reservation Porata Samithi (MRPS).
The Samithi has been agitating for over three decades.
On the very day of the Supreme Court’s ruling, Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy boldly declared in the State Assembly, pledging that Telangana would lead the nation in legislating sub-categorisation. True to his word, the government acted with unprecedented speed.
A Cabinet Sub-Committee, chaired by Irrigation and Civil Supplies Minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, was constituted shortly.
The committee, in turn, recommended the formation of a one-man commission under Justice Shameem Akhtar to ensure the legal and constitutional soundness of the proposed legislation.
The committee’s detailed consultations culminated in the passage of the Telangana Scheduled Caste (Rationalisation of Reservation) Act during the recently concluded Budget Session on March 17, 2025. The legislation subsequently received Governor’s assent on April 8, and was officially notified as Act No. 15 of 2025 in the Telangana Gazette.
Formal Notification and Final Steps
On April 14, members of the Cabinet Sub-Committee -- including Ministers Ponnam Prabhakar and C. Damodar Rajanarsimha -- presented the Government Order (GO) to the Chief Minister, finalising the implementation process.
A day prior, the committee met at the State Secretariat to iron out the remaining procedural details.
Justice Shameem Akhtar, alongside Ministers D. Seethakka, Ponnam Prabhakar, and others, attended the session to ensure the GO aligned with both the Supreme Court verdict and the commission’s findings.