New Delhi, Aug. 25 -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to consider setting up a special bench to hear the Centre's plea seeking clarity on whether its March 11 judgment on OBC creamy-layer criteria should apply to the Civil Services Examination (CSE) 2025.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant, with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana, was told by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta that the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) had filed an urgent miscellaneous application in a disposed case. The matter, he said, needed to be heard by a bench headed by Justice P S Narasimha.
Senior advocate Sanjay Hegde said the March 11 order had been passed by Justices Narasimha and R Mahadevan.
"We will have to set up a special bench," the CJI said, adding that he would consult the judges. The Centre wants permission to finalise service allocation for 958 UPSC-recommended CSE-2025 candidates using the OBC creamy-layer criteria applicable before March 11, 2026.
The CSE notification was issued on January 22, 2025, followed by the preliminary exam on May 25 and mains from August 22 to 31. UPSC announced the final result on March 6, 2026, five days before the judgment.
The Centre said applying the ruling retrospectively could disadvantage candidates who had relied on the earlier rules. Some may have appeared as general-category candidates or skipped the OBC category, along with benefits such as three-year age relaxation and additional attempts. It also warned that reopening verification could delay the CSE-2025 Foundation Course at LBSNAA, tentatively scheduled for the last week of August, affecting service allocation, cadre allocation, seniority, pay fixation and training schedules. The Centre has invoked prospective overruling, saying the plea does not seek to dilute the March 11 judgment but only clarify its implementation for CSE-2025.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.