Reality Gets Inverted at the Indian Supreme Court

On Thursday, the mirage of 'castelessness' resurfaced at the Supreme Court of India- along with several constitutional infirmities. What's new this time is the flavour of 'reverse discrimination'.

Where democratic subversion is the order of the day, constitutional functionaries often flirt with fascism.

So as it happens, Thursday recorded a couple of instructive moments in the Court of the Chief Justice of India: two distinct hearings provided hands-on education in how judicial processes protect and facilitate existing (and often exploitative) power structures.

There was, at first, an unprovoked tirade against trade unions, strangely in a petition which sought minimum wage protection for domestic helps, one of the most exploited groups amongst the larger umbrella of unorganised workers. The Chief Justice, I am certain, is aware that we have a legal framework which accords recognition to collective bargaining through unionism and protection to members of such union but then, history of a society should never come in the way of the highest judicial officer airing his prejudices in open court.

Soon after the Court was done expressing its views on the ills of class struggle, it concerned itself with the UGC Equity Regulations of 2026. To be fair, the Chief Justice had indicated his mind on Wednesday itself: when a petition challenging the Regulations was mentioned for urgent listing, the Chief remarked that the Court was ‘also aware of what is happening’. The stay, therefore, was not surprising as an outcome; it still fills one with a sense of stupefying wonder, specifically in the way the hearing (a) ignored years of settled caste jurisprudence; and (b) legitimised the bogey of ‘reverse discrimination’.

The Regulations

At first reading, the Regulations appear to be loosely drafted. One may argue that there was no need for Regulation 3(c), which provides a separate definition for ‘caste-based discrimination’, when the definition of ‘discrimination’ in Regulation 3(e) already accounts for differential treatment basis, inter alia, caste. However, this is not an incurable defect and certainly not one for which the entire Regulations ought to be temporarily put in abeyance.

In ordinary course, a court of law would read Regulation 3(c) to be clarificatory in nature: it simply describes what constitutes discrimination basis caste or tribe and against which caste/tribe groups such discrimination is usually perpetrated. This description is completely in sync with the conventional understanding of caste-based discrimination; it does not require reiteration that the basis of reservations and statutory protection to members of certain caste groups is rooted in the fact of historical oppression and lack of representation of certain communities/caste groups in public education and offices.

The opposition to the Regulations is hardly because of superfluousness in drafting: the opposition, as Sukhdeo Thorat points out, is ideological. Quite bizarrely, Regulation 3(c) was argued to be ‘exclusionary’ for it does not account for discrimination against members of ‘forward castes’, an argument hitherto unknown to caste jurisprudence. This astounding argument of violation of the equality clause was not outrightly debunked by the Bench; in fact, it stands recorded in para 4 of the order.

The definition in Regulation 3(c) is neither inadequate nor in transgression of Art. 14; there are several provisions in Part III of the Constitution which go beyond formal equality and provide substantive equality in the form of affirmative action and protective discrimination. It was as if the hearing was happening in a vacuum; these basic postulates of constitutional law were lost on the judges.

Additionally, the larger goal of ‘castelessness’ was mentioned a couple of times. I have ranted on the hollowness of this idea elsewhere but to anybody who has dealt with constitutional law even cursorily, it should be clear that our Constitution recognises caste as a driver of social discrimination and mandates the consequent need for caste-based affirmative action.

Reverse discrimination

Purely from a constitutional law perspective, the order also falters in staying a comprehensive set of Regulations in fear of ‘the possibility of their misuse’. The larger concern, however, is the legitimacy it provides to the false sense of victimhood currently playing out on the streets and on social media.

The ruse of misuse of law to persecute members of ‘forward castes’ was up until now an idea not entertained by at least the Supreme Court in its leading judgments. The Court, in fact, prides itself on its progressive dealings with issues related to caste; in November 2025, it came out with a comprehensive Report on judicial conceptions of caste, in which it encapsulates its judicial course on caste-based oppression in the following terms:

“Reservations and protective measures are not acts of charity or compensatory privileges for a deficit group. Rather, they are instruments of justice meant to correct entrenched historical and structural inequalities…”

Image Courtesy: Report on Judicial Conceptions of Caste, Centre for Research and Planning, Supreme Court of India

The effect of the present order, if carried to its logical conclusion, would lead to a significant breakaway from this correct and factual understanding of caste discrimination, and acknowledgement and acceptance of an inverted reality in which members who do not belong to backward classes or Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes are at an equal risk of facing discrimination.

We then usher into the era of ‘reverse discrimination’, where preferential treatment of marginalised groups and measures for their protection is somehow unfair to unprotected groups. The first parallel which comes to mind is the ongoing State-sponsored attacks on and reversal of DEI initiatives in the United States; the Supreme Court there has done its own bit to further this faux narrative.

Asim Ali is right in saying that the primary role of the Supreme Court is to safeguard elite hegemony. The Court protects caste privilege in the same way it protects capital. To that extent, it is once again clear that the majority in this country comprises those who are beneficiaries of the caste-capital nexus. Their numerical strength does not matter.

They run the media, they run private spaces, they run the institutions, they run the sarkar.