Reservation In India

On April 10th 2008, the Supreme Court of India upheld the government's move for initiating 27% quotas in government-funded institutions. The Court has categorically reiterated its prior stand that the creamy layer should be excluded from reservation policy, and that quotas will not apply to private institutions that do not take government aid. The verdict produced mixed reactions from supporting and opposing quarters.
Children of those earning Rs. 2.5 lakh ($6,250) per year belong to "creamy" layer (Government has declared that they will be reviewing this limit to consider inflation effect of suggested income slab and bring more eligible people under the reservation

Reservations are intended to increase the social diversity in campuses and workplaces by lowering the entry criteria for certain identifiable groups that are grossly under-represented in proportion to their numbers in the general population. Caste is the most used criteria to identify under-represented groups. However there are other identifiable criteria for under-representation -- gender (women are under represented), state of domicile (North Eastern States, as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are under-represented), rural people, etc. -- as revealed by the Government of India sponsored National Family Health and National Sample surveys.
The underlying theory is that the under-representation of the identifiable groups is a legacy of the Indian caste system. After India gained independence, the Constitution of India listed some erstwhile groups as Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST). The framers of the Constitution believed that, due to the caste system, SCs and the STs were historically oppressed and denied respect and equal opportunity in Indian society and were thus under-represented in nation-building activities. The Constitution laid down 15% and 7.5% of vacancies to government aided educational institutes and for jobs in the government/public sector, as reserved quota for the SC and ST candidates respectively for a period of five years, after which the situation was to be reviewed. This period was routinely extended by the following governments and the Indian Parliament, and no revisions were undertaken for the fear of losing votes (It is a well known fact that the so-called backward communities are active in politics and their people vote; unfortunately, the majority of highly educated Indians do not vote during the general elections).
Later, reservations were introduced for other sections as well. The Supreme Court ruling that reservations cannot exceed 50% (which it judged would violate equal access guaranteed by the Constitution) has put a cap on reservations. However, there are state laws that exceed this 50% limit and these are under litigation in the Supreme Court. For example, the caste-based reservation fraction stands at 69% and is applicable to about 87% of the population in the state of Tamil Nadu (see section on Tamil Nadu below).