Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini on Friday said that the state government will implement the sub-classification of Scheduled Castes for providing reservations, the Hindustan Times reported.

This makes Haryana the first state to put into action the Supreme Court’s August 1 ruling that allowed for the sub-classification of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe categories for the purpose of reservation.

The state government took the decision at the first meeting of the new Cabinet on Friday, a day after Saini took oath as the chief minister. This came a week after the Bharatiya Janata Party won the Haryana election by clinching 48 seats in the 90-member Assembly.

“The council of ministers today decided to implement sub-classification of Scheduled Castes into two categories as per the decision of the Supreme Court,” the chief minister said. “The sub-classification will be applicable from today.”

Ahead of the Assembly elections, the Haryana Scheduled Castes Commission in August had recommended categorising Scheduled Caste communities into two categories: Deprived Scheduled Castes and Other Scheduled Castes.

While the Deprived Scheduled Castes included 36 groups such as the Balmikis, the Dhanaks, the Mazhabi Sikhs and the Khatiks, the Other Scheduled Castes include the Chamars, the Jatia Chamars, the Rehgars, the Raigars, the Ramdasis, the Ravidasi and the Jatavs, according to the Hindustan Times.

A notification on the sub-classification of Scheduled Castes into Deprived Scheduled Castes and Other Scheduled Castes to provide each of the two categories 50% each of the 20% quota in government jobs will be issued by the chief secretary, an unidentified official told the newspaper on Friday.

In 2020, the state government enacted the Haryana Scheduled Castes Reservation in Admission in Educational Institutions Act, which reserved 50% of the seats allocated for the Scheduled Castes in educational institutions for the Deprived Scheduled Castes.

The Haryana Scheduled Castes Commission had recommended that half of the 20% reserved vacancies for the Scheduled Castes in government employment should be allocated for the Deprived Scheduled Castes as they were not adequately represented, the Hindustan Times reported.

The sub-classification of Scheduled Castes into Deprived Scheduled Castes would highlight the group’s significant underrepresentation in the services sector in Haryana, which was a direct consequence of their social, educational and occupational backwardness, the commission had said.

Responding to Saini’s announcement, Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Friday said that the Haryana government’s decision was a “conspiracy to divide Dalits once again”.

On social media, Mayawati said: “This is not only an anti-Dalit decision but also a blatant anti-reservation decision.”

She added that the BJP was engaged in a “conspiracy to first make the reservation inactive and ineffective and ultimately abolish it”.

In its verdict on August 1, a seven-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud ruled that the sub-classification of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe categories was permissible for providing reservations in government jobs and education based on empirical data.

The court, in a 6:1 majority verdict, overruled the court’s 2004 judgement, which held that Scheduled Castes formed a homogenous group and hence could not be subdivided into categories.

Four of the seven judges also called for the identification of the creamy layer among the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes categories so that they could be removed from the reservation matrix.

The creamy layer seeks to exclude the wealthier and more advanced members within a group from the benefits of affirmative action. The application of the creamy layer, however, was not one of the questions before the bench, and the suggestions of the four judges lack legal enforceability.

Several states across the country saw protests by Dalit and Adivasi groups against the verdict. The Opposition parties also criticised it. BJP MPs from the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities had also expressed concerns about the court’s observations.

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