Article 15(6) is a provision of the Indian Constitution that allows the State to make special provisions, including reservation, for the advancement of the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) of citizens. This clause was inserted by the Constitution (One Hundred and Third Amendment) Act, 2019, which received Presidential assent on January 12, 2019, and came into effect on January 14, 2019. The amendment was created to address economic disparity by providing affirmative action based solely on economic criteria, a concept previously struck down by the Supreme Court in the Mandal case.
The provision works by permitting the State to reserve up to 10% of seats for EWS in educational institutions, including private unaided institutions, but excluding minority educational institutions under Article 30(1). This reservation is in addition to the existing reservations for Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), and Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBCs) under Article 15(4) and Article 15(5). The EWS category is defined by the State based on family income and other indicators of economic disadvantage, typically excluding those already covered by existing reservation schemes.
Article 15(6) is closely connected to Article 16(6), which was simultaneously inserted by the 103rd Amendment to provide a parallel 10% reservation for EWS in initial appointments to posts in public employment. The constitutional validity of the 103rd Amendment was upheld by the Supreme Court in the 2022 judgment Janhit Abhiyan v. Union of India, which affirmed the exclusion of SCs, STs, and OBCs from the EWS quota as valid. The core change introduced by the 103rd Amendment was the addition of economic criteria as a permissible basis for reservation, which was a significant departure from the previous focus on social and educational backwardness.