Why a Backward Majority Is Not an Extraordinary Situation: Karnataka's 56% Quota Falls

The Exception That Population Cannot Unlock In Indra Sawhney

(1992), a nine-judge Bench held that reservations under Articles 15(4) and 16(4) should ordinarily not exceed 50%. Article 15(4) allows special provisions for socially and educationally backward classes, SCs and STs. Article 16(4) allows reservation in State posts for backward classes not adequately represented.

The Bench left one door open: extraordinary situations, its example being people living in far-flung and remote areas. It never defined that phrase exhaustively. Karnataka's 2022 Act tried to walk through that undefined door and the High Court has now shut it.

The argument Karnataka made The State's case rested on numbers.

A committee headed by then Additional Chief Secretary K. Ratna Prabha reported in May 2017 that over 90% of Karnataka's population belongs to SC, ST and OBC groups. It argued that reservation should match that share. Alongside the Nagamohan Das Commission and Adi Committee reports, this was meant to show that a 56% total was a correction rather than an excess.

The State raised the SC quota from 15% to 17% and the ST quota from 3% to 7%, while OBC reservation stayed at 32%.

Why population is not extraordinary The Bench answered on two levels.

First, a State's subjective view that a class is under-represented relative to its population lets it reserve only within 50%, not beyond. The ceiling does not stretch with population size or with the degree of backwardness.

Second, wanting a few more percentage points for one class is not an extraordinary situation and breaching the limit for that reason would undermine equality itself. The Court added that reservation never stops backward-class candidates from competing for open seats.

This is where Jaishri Laxmanrao Patil (2021) does the work. A five-judge Constitution Bench unanimously struck down Maharashtra's Maratha quota for the same reason. The State had shown no extraordinary circumstance, only a political and demographic claim.

Karnataka's argument was arguably weaker, because it sought to make the exception universal. If most of a State's people are backward, the "extraordinary" becomes ordinary and the ceiling stops meaning anything.

The

EWS complication, answered Janhit Abhiyan (2022) upheld the 10% EWS quota by 3:2. The majority held that the 50% ceiling is not an inflexible part of the basic structure and applies to backward-class reservations. States read this as a loosening. The Karnataka ruling shows its limits. The ceiling may have flexed for a new kind of reservation, but for SC, ST and OBC quotas Indra Sawhney still governs.

The finding most will miss The procedural holding may matter even more.

Articles 338(9) and 338A(9) require every State to consult the National Commissions for SCs and STs on all major policy matters affecting those groups. Karnataka wrote to them nearly three years after enacting the law. The Court held that consultation must come before the decision to be meaningful.

It rejected the argument that consultation is needed only when a policy harms SCs or STs. The text says "shall consult" but is silent on timing and the Court has now filled that silence. For the examiner, the case shows the 50% rule standing after the EWS judgment and caste surveys.

It also shows that constitutional bodies like the NCSC and NCST can be a precondition of valid policy, not an afterthought.