Context

• The allotment of Indian Administrative Service (IAS) to Puja Khedkar as an Other Backward Class (OBC) Non-Creamy Layer (NCL) candidate coupled with multiple disabilities has raised issues surrounding the creamy layer in OBC reservation.

What is the history of reservation? 

• Articles 15 and 16 guarantee equality to all citizens in any policy of the government and public employment respectively. 
• In order to achieve social justice, they also enable special provisions for the advancement of socially and educationally backward classes or OBC, Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST). 
• Reservations for SC and ST are fixed at 15% and 7.5% respectively, in jobs, educational institutions and public sector undertakings (PSU) at the central level. 
• It was in 1990, when V. P. Singh was Prime Minister, that 27% reservation for OBC was implemented in central government employment based on Mandal Commission (1980) recommendations. 
• Subsequently in 2005, reservation was enabled for OBC, SC and ST in educational institutions including private institutions. 
• In 2019, 10% reservation was enabled for the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) among the unreserved category. 

What is the creamy layer? 

• The 27% reservation for OBC was upheld by the Supreme Court in the Indra Sawhney case (1992). 
• It opined that caste is a determinant of class in the Indian context. However, in order to uphold the basic structure of equality, it fixed a cap of 50% for reservation unless there are exceptional circumstances. The court also provided for exclusion of creamy layer from OBC.
• The criteria for identifying a person as part of the creamy layer is based on the recommendations of the Justice Ram Nandan Prasad Committee (1993). 
• It is determined by the position/income of an applicant’s parents alone. The criteria for belonging to creamy layer is parental income, excluding income from salary and agricultural income, being more than ₹8 lakh in each year in the last three consecutive financial years. 
• Further, the following categories of applicants are also considered as belonging to creamy layer : (a) parents, either of whom entered government service (centre or State) as Group A/Class I officer or parents, both of whom entered as Group B/Class II officers or father, who was recruited in Group B/Class II post and promoted to Group A/Class I before 40 years of age; (b) either of the parents employed in a managerial position in PSUs; (c) either of the parents holding constitutional posts. 

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/on-reservations-and-the-obc-creamy-layer-explained/article68458087.ece#:~:text=The%20reservation%20at%20present%20stands,the%20central%20government%20remain%20unfilled.