New Delhi, May 11: The “creamy layer” concept does not apply to political reservation, the Supreme Court said today while upholding “proportionate” representation for OBCs in elected local bodies.

“While the exclusion of the creamy layer may be… desirable in reservations for education and employment, the principle cannot be extended to local self-government,” the court said, upholding the OBC quotas in panchayats and municipalities in Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh.

The five-judge bench cited “an inherent difference” between the benefits of grassroots political reservation and those conferred by job and education quotas.

“While access to higher education and public employment increases the likelihood of socio-economic uplift of individual beneficiaries, participation in local self-government was intended as a more immediate measure of empowerment for the community that the elected representative belonged to,” it said.

It observed that OBC representatives from a higher socio-economic stratum could often be better equipped to represent and protect the interests of their communities.

Petitioners had claimed that the two states’ OBC quotas in local bodies, including reservation of chairpersons’ posts, violated the principle of equality. They had also challenged the Constitution Amendment (73rd) Act, 1992, and the Constitution (74th) Amendment Act, 1992, that allow states to introduce such reservations but do not specify any limit.

The court said the quota percentage should depend on the beneficiary groups’ population in a state, and that the 50 per cent cap should normally be adhered to except in Scheduled Tribe (Fifth Schedule) areas and some northeastern states. It said specific state laws could be challenged if they provided excessive reservation.

However, the court added that social and economic backwardness did not always coincide with political backwardness, and so states may need to rework their political quotas.

As for reservation of chairpersons’ posts, the court said, this was meant to enable the weaker sections to raise their voice against entrenched interests at the local level. Unlike MPs and MLAs, for whom the backing of mainstream political parties and media scrutiny can be a shield against marginalisation and discrimination, local body representatives from the disadvantaged sections may have no such support.