Bihar has reiterated that parents’ salaries and agricultural income must be excluded from OBC creamy layer calculations.
Centre has sought Supreme Court clarity after the Rohith Nathan judgment challenged existing income-based exclusion practices.
Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the Centre’s applications seeking clarification on applying the judgment.
Bihar has again instructed officials not to count parents’ salaries or agricultural earnings when deciding whether an OBC candidate falls in the creamy layer. In an order issued by the General Administration Department, the state stated that the income test must follow Centre and state instructions that exclude those two income sources.
The September 1 order went to all District Magistrates. It came days after the Union government moved the Supreme Court seeking clarity on how the income test should be applied, especially after the court’s March 11 Rohith Nathan judgment.
The order does not name that judgment, but the Centre has asked the court to clarify the test and has also argued that, in some cases, parents’ salaries may need to be counted to identify creamy layer candidates among OBCs.
DoPT Guidelines Cited
Bihar said it was following older rules. The General Administration Department informed District Magistrates that instructions issued by both the Centre and the state on the income test do not allow parents’ salaries and agricultural earnings to be included.
The order cited the Department of Personnel and Training’s principal 1993 guidelines on creamy layer exclusion, along with Bihar government orders issued since then on the same process.
The department also stated that there were reports that the creamy layer exclusion procedure was not being followed fully in practice. It called for strict compliance with the existing guidelines and state orders.
Rohith Nathan Ruling
The March 11 Rohith Nathan judgment examined how the income test was being applied to OBC candidates. The Supreme Court stated that the DoPT was applying the test differently across categories of OBC candidates.
The court called that “hostile discrimination”. It stated that some OBC candidates had been kept out of reservation on the basis of income from parents’ salaries alone.
The judgment also set out the purpose of creamy layer exclusion. The court stated that the rule was intended to weed out OBC candidates who had acquired certain social and economic privileges, and that relying only on economic criteria to exclude OBCs from reservation was not consistent with the foundational principles of the creamy layer exclusion tool.
The court then asked the Centre to create supernumerary posts for the litigant candidates and to adjust them in the Civil Services accordingly.
Centre Seeks Clarity
Months later, the Centre returned to the court. It filed applications in the Supreme Court seeking clarity on the judgment and on the income test.
In those applications, the Union government stated that it would be “extremely difficult” to apply the ruling retrospectively. It also sought clarification on the income test itself.
The Centre further argued that salary income may still matter in some situations. It told the court that income from salaries should be considered when it may be the “sole intelligible differentia” between two different OBC candidates.
Those applications are now listed before the Supreme Court and are scheduled to be heard later this month.
