Supreme Court will hear the Centre on OBC creamy layer for 958 CSE-2025 officers

The Supreme Court on 1 September refused to stay its 11 March judgment on how Other Backward Class creamy-layer status is decided and agreed to hear the Union government's objections next week. A bench of Justices P.S. Narasimha and R. Mahadevan issued notice on the Centre's modification application, asked parties to file replies by 17 September, and said it had not yet considered the merits.

The Department of Personnel and Training wants permission to allot services and cadres to 958 candidates recommended by the Union Public Service Commission for the Civil Services Examination 2025 using the creamy-layer test that applied before 11 March. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the bench that officers are waiting for postings and that applying the new ruling to this batch would create practical damage.

The calendar is the Centre's strongest fact. The CSE-2025 notification went out on 22 January 2025. The preliminary paper was on 25 May 2025. The mains ran from 22 to 31 August 2025. UPSC published the final list on 6 March 2026. The court delivered Union of India vs Rohith Nathan five days later, on 11 March. The government says the exam had already ended and that only allocation remains.

What the March judgment actually did is easy to state and hard to administer. The bench held that creamy-layer status cannot rest on parental or agricultural income alone. The September 1993 office memorandum, it said, still governs. That memorandum looks at the parents' posts and at property, not only at a salary line. A 14 October 2004 clarification letter, the court said, cannot override the 1993 text. Treating public-sector, private and government employees differently on income alone, it held, fails Article 14.

The Centre now says a faithful reading of that holding would pull some high-income households back into the non-creamy-layer column and push others out. DoPT calls the consequences wide-ranging. Senior advocates Sanjay Hegde and P. Wilson, for original petitioners, raised a preliminary objection to maintainability. The bench noted the objection and still issued notice.

The six-month compliance window the court gave in March would have bitten on this year's cadre allocation. That is why the file reached a special bench. On 25 August the court had already said it would constitute one. Tuesday's hearing was the first appearance of that bench on the modification plea. There is no stay. The 11 March law stands while the judges decide whether this batch is inside or outside it.

For the 958 people on the UPSC list the difference is not academic. Service allocation decides whether a candidate enters the IAS, IFS, IPS or a smaller service, and which state cadre they join. A creamy-layer flip can move a person from a reserved vacancy to the general list, or the other way, after they have already sat every paper under the old understanding.

The government wants the old test for this cohort and a longer argument about the future. The petitioners want the March ruling applied as written. The bench will hear that fight on a date after 17 September. Until then the officers wait, the 1993 memorandum is the law the court has already declared, and the 2004 letter is not.