Mandal Commission: Impact on India’s Reservation Policy

Census 2027 will count caste for the first time since 1931 2026

The Registrar General of India notified the 40 questions for the population-enumeration phase of Census 2027, including one on Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe or caste. Enumerators will write down the caste a person declares in an open field rather than pick from a list. Snow-bound areas were scheduled for September 2026; the rest of India will be counted in February 2027.

OBC is not a separate tick box, so any OBC total will have to be built later by matching declared castes to central and state lists.

Supreme Court: salary alone cannot decide the creamy layer Court

Ruling on civil-service candidates who were denied OBC status because of their parents’ salaries, the Supreme Court held that creamy-layer status cannot be decided solely on income. A 2004 DoPT clarification could not override the 1993 memorandum, which excludes salary and farm income from the income test and looks at the parent’s post instead.

Counting salary for children of PSU and private-sector employees, but not for children of equivalent government employees, was hostile discrimination under Articles 14 and 16. The Centre was told to reconsider the candidates’ claims within six months.

Centre agrees to a caste count Policy

The Union government’s Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs decided that caste would be enumerated in the next census. Opposition parties had campaigned for a national caste census for years, citing Bihar’s 2023 survey; the decision set the stage for what commentators quickly called ‘Mandal 2.0’.

Sub-classification allowed within Scheduled Castes Court

A seven-judge bench held that states may sub-classify Scheduled Castes to give the most backward groups a fair share of the quota. The case was not about OBCs, but its reasoning, that a reserved category is not a uniform block, is the same idea behind the long-running plan to sub-categorise OBCs.

Bihar’s caste survey puts backward classes at 63% Policy

Bihar became the first state in decades to publish full caste figures. Its survey found Extremely Backward Classes at 36.01% and Backward Classes at 27.12% of the state’s population, together 63.13%. The state then raised its own reservation to 65%, a law the Patna High Court struck down in June 2024 for breaching the 50% ceiling.

Rohini Commission submits its report Policy

The commission on sub-categorisation of OBCs, chaired by retired Justice G. Rohini, gave its report to the President after almost six years. It was asked to check how evenly the 27% central quota was shared among more than 2,600 listed castes and to suggest sub-groups.

The government has not published the report. Data the commission examined in 2018 was widely reported to show that a small group of OBC castes had taken most central jobs and admissions, while hundreds of listed castes had received none.

EWS quota upheld, 3-2 Court

The Supreme Court upheld the 103rd Amendment, which created a 10% quota for Economically Weaker Sections. The majority held that reservation based on economic criteria alone does not violate the Constitution’s basic structure, and that the 50% ceiling from Indra Sawhney applies to caste-based reservation, not to this separate quota. The two dissenting judges objected to excluding poor SC, ST and OBC families.

States get back the power to make OBC lists Amendment

In the Maratha reservation case the Supreme Court struck down Maharashtra’s separate quota for Marathas, reaffirmed the 50% ceiling, and read the 2018 amendment as leaving only the Centre with power to identify backward classes. Parliament responded with the 105th Amendment, restoring the right of states and union territories to keep their own OBC lists.

A separate 10% quota for Economically Weaker Sections Amendment

Parliament passed the 103rd Amendment in January 2019, enabling up to 10% reservation for economically weaker people who are not covered by SC, ST or OBC quotas. It marked a new basis for reservation: income, not social backwardness.

NCBC becomes a constitutional body Amendment

The 102nd Amendment gave the National Commission for Backward Classes constitutional status, with powers similar to the SC and ST commissions to hear complaints and monitor safeguards. A new Article 342A said the President would notify the central list of socially and educationally backward classes.

₹8 lakh limit and an OBC sub-categorisation panel Policy

The government raised the creamy-layer income limit to ₹8 lakh a year from ₹6 lakh and, three weeks later, set up a commission to examine sub-categorisation of the 27% central OBC quota.

Supreme Court upholds OBC quota in central institutions Court

The Supreme Court upheld the 93rd Amendment and the 2006 Act giving 27% OBC reservation in central educational institutions, provided the creamy layer was excluded. Implementation began in the 2008-09 academic year and was phased in over three years as institutions expanded their intake.

Reservation moves into higher education Amendment

After a 2005 Supreme Court ruling restricted reservation in private, unaided colleges, Parliament inserted Article 15(5), allowing special provisions for backward classes, SCs and STs in admissions. In April 2006 Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh announced 27% OBC reservation in central institutions such as the IITs, IIMs and AIIMS.

Medical students and resident doctors protested and struck work in May 2006. Parliament passed the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006, which received assent in January 2007.

Creamy-layer rules and a backward classes commission Policy

An expert committee headed by retired Justice R. N. Prasad recommended who should count as the creamy layer. On 8 September 1993 the Department of Personnel and Training issued the memorandum that still governs the test: children of people in constitutional posts, senior Group A and B officers, senior armed-forces officers, large landholders and families above an income limit, then ₹1 lakh a year, are excluded.

The National Commission for Backward Classes Act, 1993 set up a statutory body to advise on adding communities to the central list. With these in place, the Mandal quota finally took effect in central recruitment.

Indra Sawhney: the Mandal judgment Court

The Supreme Court upheld the 27% OBC reservation in central civil posts, with conditions that still shape Indian reservation law:

• Caste can be a basis: a caste can be a social class for identifying backwardness.
• Creamy layer: the advanced among OBCs must be excluded.
• 50% ceiling: reservations should ordinarily not exceed half of posts.
• No economic-only quota: the 10% quota of the 1991 memorandum was struck down.
• No reservation in promotions: allowed to continue for only five years.
• Permanent body: the Centre and states had to set up commissions to examine inclusion and exclusion.

Narasimha Rao’s government amends the order Policy

The new Congress government of P. V. Narasimha Rao kept the 27% quota but added two changes: within it, poorer sections of OBCs would get preference, and a further 10% would be reserved for economically backward people not covered by any scheme.

Protests, a court stay and a government’s fall Protest

Anti-reservation protests spread across north Indian campuses. On 19 September 1990 Delhi University student Rajiv Goswami set himself on fire in protest; he survived with severe burns, but dozens of young people attempted self-immolation in the weeks that followed and many died. Supporters of reservation organised counter-rallies.

On 1 October 1990 the Supreme Court stayed the memorandum pending a final decision. V. P. Singh’s government lost a confidence vote on 7 November 1990, after the BJP withdrew support in a separate dispute over L. K. Advani’s arrest during his Ayodhya rath yatra.

V. P. Singh announces 27% for OBCs Policy

Prime Minister V. P. Singh told Parliament that his National Front government would implement the Mandal Commission’s recommendation of 27% reservation for socially and educationally backward classes in central government jobs. The office memorandum followed on 13 August 1990, using the castes common to both the Mandal list and the states’ lists in the first phase.

He returned to the theme of social justice in his Independence Day speech from the Red Fort on 15 August.

A decade on the shelf Policy

The report was laid before Parliament on 30 April 1982 during Indira Gandhi’s second term, but neither her government nor Rajiv Gandhi’s acted on the 27% recommendation. Many states, especially in the south, already ran backward-class quotas of their own.

The Mandal report is submitted Policy

After surveys across the country, the commission submitted its report. Using 11 indicators of social, educational and economic backwardness, it identified 3,743 castes and communities as backward and estimated that OBCs made up about 52% of India’s population.

Because the Supreme Court had indicated that reservations should stay below 50%, it recommended 27%, not 52%, for OBCs in central services and public-sector undertakings. It also recommended reservation in promotions, in educational institutions and in bodies receiving government aid, plus land reform and other measures.

The Second Backward Classes Commission is set up Policy

Prime Minister Morarji Desai’s Janata Party government, which had promised in its 1977 manifesto to reserve 25% to 33% of government jobs for backward classes, set up a five-member commission under former Bihar Chief Minister B. P. Mandal. It was asked to define criteria for socially and educationally backward classes and recommend steps for their advancement.

The first Backward Classes Commission Policy

India’s first backward classes commission, chaired by Kaka Kalelkar, listed 2,399 backward castes and communities. Kalelkar himself distanced himself from using caste as the main test, and the government rejected the report, leaving the identification of OBCs to the states.

The constitutional foundation Policy

Article 16(4) allowed the state to reserve posts for any backward class not adequately represented in public services, and Article 340 allowed the President to appoint a commission to study the conditions of socially and educationally backward classes. Article 15(4), added by the First Amendment in 1951, extended special provisions to their advancement more widely.