High Court of Karnataka. | Photo credit:
The Karnataka High Court has barred the state government from making appointments to state civil services based on the August 25, 2025, notification of revised sub-classification of Scheduled Caste (SC) communities into three groups and distribution of reservation percentage.
However, the court said that the recruitment process for various posts can continue but appointments cannot be made on the basis of such a process.
Provisional order
Justice Suraj Govindaraj passed the interim order on a petition filed by the Confederation of Untouchable Nomadic Communities of Karnataka, Bengaluru and others belonging to nomadic and semi-nomadic castes within SC communities.
While terming the state government’s sub-categorization of SC communities as “unscientific, irrational and without adequate defining principles”, the petitioners said the government has divided the various SC communities into three groups against the five groups recommended by a committee headed by a retired high court judge that surveyed the SC communities earlier this year.
“The state government has come up with its own formula without following the commission’s recommendations. The nomadic communities to which the petitioners belong are placed in Group C with 5% reservation, under Group A and Group B, in which there are advanced homogenous communities who have been given 6% reservation in the August 25, 2025 notification,” the petitioners alleged.
They also pointed out that sub-classification of SCs by the state government means clustering of the most backward communities with the less backward communities among the SCs.
“Target Defeated”
The state government’s irrational sub-classification of SC communities has defeated the very object of the sub-classification, which was to provide preferential treatment to the most oppressed categories among SCs, the petitioners complained, pointing out that there was no basis for dividing 101 SC communities into three groups and allotting a total of 17% reservation to these groups.
The petitioners sought a direction from the court to quash the notification dated August 25, 2025, terming it inconsistent with various judgments of the apex court.
Published – 17 Oct 2025 20:49 IST
