New Delhi, Sept. 1 -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to consider the Centre's plea seeking clarification on the applicability of its March 11 judgement on OBC creamy-layer criteria on candidates of the Civil Services Examination (CSE) 2025.

A bench of Justices PS Narasimha and R Mahadevan issued notice on the Centre's plea and asked the parties to file their responses by September 17. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, submitted that there are serious practical difficulties in implementing the March 11 decision this year as candidates are waiting for their posting and will be affected.

Senior advocates Sanjay Hegde and P Wilson, appearing for some of the original petitioners, said that they have a preliminary objection on the maintainability of the petition filed by the Centre.

Hegde said that the Centre has filed a miscellaneous application for clarification of the verdict and it is not a review petition.

Mehta submitted that there are several judgments in their favour and can address the issue of maintainability, if raised by the opposite parties.

The bench said it is posting the matter for hearing on September 17 and the petitioners can raise the issue of maintainability of the petition on that day.

On August 25, the top court said it would constitute a special bench to hear Centre's plea for clarification on the applicability of its March 11 judgement.

The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has sought directions allowing the government to proceed with service allocation of the 958 candidates recommended by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) for CSE-2025 on the basis of the OBC creamy-layer determination applied before the March 11 verdict.

The DoPT's plea arises from the top court's judgement in a case titled Union of India vs Rohith Nathan, in which the court, on March 11 held, among other things, that the October 14, 2004 clarifying letter could not override the September 8, 1993 office memorandum governing identification of the OBC creamy layer.

The court also held that the salary or income of a parent employed in a public sector undertaking or the private sector could not by itself be treated as the determinative criterion for creamy-layer exclusion.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.