Ex-CJI Gavai on economic caveat in reservation for SCs: ‘I was criticised by my own community’

FSea-ear Chief justness of bharat BR Gavai has said he has been "widely criticised" by people from his possess community of interests for his judgement that the 'creamy layer' principle be applied to reservation for the Scheduled Castes too. The principle means those with a certain level of income be excluded from reservation policies.He was accused of taking benefits of reservation himself to become a Supreme Court judge, and then advocating the exclusion of those who have advanced economically and socially while being members of the backward community for which a quota is meant, he noted.“But these people did not even know that there is no reservation for the constitutional office of High Court or Supreme Court judge,” Gavai, who retired as CJI recently, was delivering a lecture on ‘Role of Affirmative Action in Promoting Equal Opportunity’ at Mumbai University on Saturday, news agency PTI reported.Gavai became only the second Dalit CJI in May 2025 — the first was Justice KG Balakrishnan — and served a short tenure until November 2025."I have travelled across the country, across the world. I have seen many people belonging to the Scheduled Caste becoming chief secretary or director general of police or ambassadors and high commissioners," he said.“Can applying the same yardstick to the son of a chief justice of India or chief secretary and the son of a labourer who has studied in a gram panchayat school satisfy the test of equality as enshrined in the Constitution?” Gavai remarked.Paying tributes to Dr BR Ambedkar on his death anniversary, Gavai said the iconic leader was the architect not only of the Indian Constitution but also of the affirmative action enshrined in it.“Babasaheb, in so far affirmative action is concerned, was of the view that it is like providing a cycle to those who are lagging behind… Suppose somebody is at tenth kilometre and somebody at zero, he (the latter) should be provided a cycle, so that he reaches faster till the tenth kilometre. From there, he joins the person who is already there and walks along with him,” the former judge said."Did he (Ambedkar) think that the person should not leave the cycle and carry forward and thereby ask the people who are at zero kilometre to continue to be there?" he asked, as per the PTI report.“In my view, that was not the vision of social and economic justice as contemplated by Babasaheb Ambedkar.” He said Ambedkar wanted to bring social and economic justice “in the real sense and not in a formal sense”.He, however, emphasised that in the last 75 years "no doubt affirmative action has played a positive role".