The focus of this paper is the analysis of the justification of the “creamy layer” principle in India’s reservation system through the lenses of Capability Approach. This principle is intended to curb the socially and economically empowered members of the Other Backward Class (OBC) groups from availing the reservation multiple times. This principle is said to be based primarily on the income, which is not exhaustive of the social and the institutional backwardness. This research also analyses the so-called reverse discrimination which happens because of the reservation system, that is, the reservation system is said to be disadvantaging the non-beneficiary groups. This also stresses the situation of the beneficiaries because the reservation policies ought to be evidence-based and the result should be inequality. The paper, based on Capability Approach developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, supports the claim that the focus on actual freedoms, such as the ability to move around the formal and informal educational and social frameworks as well as the capacity to engage in meaningful and active participation in the community, provides us with a better understanding of the social injustice and social inequalities. It argues that this approach will allow for the identification of backwardness, allow for reservations to be rationally and constitutionally justifiable, and will reduce the perceived reverse discrimination.
S.D. Prasad (Fri,) studied this question.