Supreme Court: OBC creamy-layer ruling won't reopen past selections, but governs pending CSE-2025 service allocation

Disposing of miscellaneous applications filed by the Union of India seeking clarification of its own judgment of 11 March 2026, the Supreme Court held that its ruling on how the 'creamy layer' is determined for the Other Backward Classes will not operate retrospectively to reopen selections, appointments, cadre allocations, seniority or admissions already concluded before that date. The March judgment had held that candidates whose parents worked in Public Sector Undertakings or similar organisations could not automatically be treated as creamy layer merely because an equivalence with government posts had not been formally established under the Department of Personnel and Training's 1993 Office Memorandum on the Income and Wealth Test. The Union sought a two-year window to work out post equivalence with the States, and a direction that the ongoing Civil Services Examination, 2025 be governed by the pre-March 2026 position.

The Court declined to fix any timeline for the executive's policy-making on equivalence, holding that this falls within the domain of the Government, but held that since service allocation for Civil Services Examination, 2025 candidates was still pending and not yet finalised, the creamy-layer interpretation laid down in the March judgment must govern that allocation. Claims of similarly placed candidates pending before other courts or tribunals may be decided on their own facts, applying that interpretation.