Editor's Pick: Does economic betterment amount to social justice?

(The Editor's Pick is a new newsletter from The Hindu that provides a snapshot of the most important stories from today's edition of our newspaper, along with a note from our top editors on why we chose to give prominence to these stories.)

Does economic betterment amount to social justice? The Supreme Court has held that States can create classifications within the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. This runs contrary to a 2004 judgement which said that such moves amount to tinkering with the Presidential list. The Constitutional Bench made this judgement on a question raised by Punjab's law allowing reservation within the reserved Scheduled Caste seats in the State. Since both judgements were made by five-judge Benches, it will now be up to a larger Bench to take the final call.

This judgement holds implications for the exclusion of a "creamy layer" from social classes that benefit from reservations. In yesterday's judgement, the court has made strong observation on reservation creating classes within classes. It gives the States a free hand to address this issue and ensure equal justice. Last year, the court had refused a plea by the Centre to refer the Jarnail Singh verdict to a larger Bench. The Centre had argued that the "creamy layer" concept was flawed as SC and ST communities as a whole still bore the effects of centuries of oppression, despite some among them doing better economically. As a report on a judgment that grapples with caste, occupation, and poverty as the basis for reservations, and looks at the relationship between economic betterment and social justice, this story gains importance.