The Indra Sawhney Judgment is a landmark judicial concept delivered by a nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India on November 16, 1992. The case, formally titled Indra Sawhney & Others v. Union of India, addressed the constitutional validity of the government's decision to implement the Mandal Commission Report. The problem it solved was the legal challenge to the 27% reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in central government services, which had led to widespread protests after its announcement in 1990.
The core ratio of the judgment was that the 27% reservation for OBCs under Article 16(4) of the Constitution is valid, but it must be subject to two crucial conditions. First, the total quantum of reservations for all categories—Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), and OBCs—must not exceed a 50% ceiling of the total posts in a given year. Second, the concept of the "creamy layer" was introduced, mandating the exclusion of the socially and economically advanced persons within the OBCs from reservation benefits to ensure the benefits reach the most deserving. The judgment also clarified that Article 16(4) is not an exception to the fundamental right of equality in employment under Article 16(1), but an instance of classification.
The judgment is closely connected to Article 16(4), which enables the State to make provisions for the reservation of appointments or posts in favour of any backward class of citizens. A key provision that has changed is the restriction on reservations in promotions, which the judgment initially held was not permissible under Article 16(4). This was subsequently amended by Parliament through the 77th Constitutional Amendment Act in 1995, which inserted Article 16(4A) to allow for reservation in promotion for SCs and STs. The monetary limit for the "creamy layer" has also been periodically revised, for instance, to ₹800,000 in 2015.