Last Updated:May 06, 2025, 13:39 IST

Supreme Court Justice Surya Kant said the reservation system was becoming like a train compartment, where those who had already secured their seats did not want others to enter.

Supreme Court Justice Surya Kant on Tuesday likened the caste reservation system in India to a “train compartment”, where people who have already secured their seats do not want others to enter.

He made the remarks during a hearing related to OBC reservation in the local body elections in Maharashtra. Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan was arguing on behalf of the petitioner that politically backward and socially backward classes should be identified in the state.

Sankaranarayanan said Maharashtra’s Banthia Commission had given reservations to the OBCs without asserting that they were politically backward.

“The thing is, in this country, the reservation business has become like a railway. Those who have entered the compartment don’t want anyone else to enter. That is the whole game. That is precisely the game of the petitioner as well,” he said.

Justice Kant said the states were bound to identify more classes in order to ensure that they are not deprived of any benefits of reservation, and that this classification should not be confined to one particular family or groups.

Notably, Justice Surya Kant will serve as the Chief Justice of India from November 24, 2025 till his retirement on February 9, 2027. He will replace Justice BR Gavai, who is set to become CJI on May 14.

Justice Gavai had earlier used the same reference, likening the attitude of those opposing sub-classification of backward classes to the individuals who refuse to let others enter a train compartment after having secured the seats themselves, saying they perpetuate the same exclusionary practices that kept their own communities marginalised for centuries.

The Supreme Court has directed the Maharashtra State Election Commission to notify elections to local bodies within 4 weeks. A two-judge bench said the long-overdue local body elections in Maharashtra cannot be delayed further due to the issue of OBC reservations. OBC communities will be given reservation as existed in the state prior to the 2022 Report.

The local body polls in Maharashtra were held in 2016-17, and the main reason for the delay was the legal fight over the quota of OBC candidates. The Supreme Court had struck down an ordinance by the Maharashtra government in 2021 to implement a 27% quota for OBCs. It had directed the setting up of a dedicated commission to inquire into the implications of backwardness in local bodies and said the total reservation for SCs, STs and OBCs should not exceed 50%.

In 2022, the Supreme Court had directed that the status quo to be maintained in the matter pertaining to OBC reservations in the elections, which means the OBC quota could not be implemented at the time.

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