Polity · 27 Aug 2026

OBC creamy layer prospective overruling

Assertion (A): The Supreme Court's March 2026 judgment in Union of India v. Rohith Nathan did not specify whether its ruling on OBC creamy-layer criteria applies retrospectively to the already-completed Civil Services Examination 2025 cycle.
Reason (R): Indian law has a settled, codified rule requiring every Supreme Court judgment that corrects a discriminatory legal provision to apply only prospectively from the date of the judgment.
Select the correct answer using the codes given below:

ABoth A and R are true and R is the correct explanation of A
BBoth A and R are true, but R is NOT the correct explanation of A
CA is true, but R is false
DA is false, but R is true
This question is based on: The Court Fixed the Discrimination. It Never Said From When.
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About this question

Why in news

The Supreme Court has agreed to constitute a special bench to decide whether its March 2026 ruling striking down differential OBC creamy-layer criteria applies retrospectively to 958 CSE-2025 candidates awaiting service allocation, with the Centre arguing retrospective application would trigger cascading seniority disruptions.

Why for UPSC

This probes the classic UPSC trap of assuming a "settled rule" exists where the actual constitutional position is discretionary and unresolved - testing depth of understanding of judicial doctrine rather than surface recall of the case's outcome.

Prelims summary

Prospective overruling (first used in Golaknath v. State of Punjab, 1967) lets courts limit a ruling's effect to the future, but Indian law has no codified rule on when it must be invoked - leaving each judicial correction's retrospective effect to case-by-case judicial discretion, as seen in the ongoing Rohith Nathan/CSE-2025 dispute.

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