NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday closed a long argument with a split verdict of its own making — what is done will not be undone, but what is pending will not wait.
A Bench of Justices P.S. Narasimha and R. Mahadevan clarified the reach of its 11 March 2026 judgment on the OBC creamy layer. The Centre had read that judgment as operating retrospectively, with the power to unsettle years of recruitment. The court rejected the premise.
"The judgment dated 11 March 2026 determines the rights of the parties before this court," the Bench held, confirming that the candidates who came to court fall in the OBC non-creamy layer and are entitled to reservation benefits along with consequential placement and allotment of posts.
The next line is the one that matters to everyone else. "The grant of such benefit shall not, by itself, operate to the detriment of the seniority of any other person or entail the reopening of selections or appointments already concluded." The ratio, the court said, does not by itself furnish grounds to reopen selections concluded before 11 March.
One plea, however, was turned down. The Civil Services Examination 2025 result was declared on 6 March, but services had not been allocated. "The process of allocation remains pending and there is no convincing or reasonable justification for deferring the implementation," the court said. The creamy layer principle will therefore govern service allocation for OBC candidates selected through CSE 2025.
The Centre's worry was sizeable. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta put before the court that more than 5.69 lakh reserved vacancies, including about 3.7 lakh OBC posts, had been filled between 2016 and 2025, and warned that reopening them would disturb allocation, seniority, promotions and admissions.
The court carved out a middle path. All selections, appointments and roster allotments made after 11 March will be governed by the 1993 office memorandum as interpreted in the March judgment. Claims from similarly placed candidates pending before other courts, tribunals or authorities will be decided on their own merits, and the court expressed no view on them.
The underlying dispute turned on two instructions: the 1993 memorandum laying down creamy layer criteria, which excluded salary and agricultural income from the income and wealth test, and a 2004 letter that allowed parental salary to be counted where equivalence of posts in PSUs, banks and private firms had not been established. The March judgment held that a clarificatory letter cannot introduce a substantive condition absent from the parent policy, and that treating children of PSU and private employees differently from those of comparable government servants amounted to hostile discrimination.
The government remains free to frame its creamy layer policy. The court declined to set any deadline for establishing equivalence of posts, holding that this falls within the domain of the executive and the legislature, and extended the compliance period by two months.