New Delhi: The supreme court on Friday repealed the Justice K.K. Narendran Commission report recommending raising the annual income limit from Rs. 1.5 lakh to Rs. 3 lakh for the exclusion of the creamy layer from the backward class for the purpose of reservation in Kerala, and ruled that that exclusion of creamy layer from the backward class would be a constitutional requirement to be followed by both centre and state.

A bench of Justices S.B. Sinha and P.P. Naolekar ruled: "A group of persons although are not as such backward or have by passage of time ceased to be backward, would come within the purview of the creamy-layer doctrine evolved by this court. The court by evolving the said doctrine intended to lay down a law that in terms of our constitutional scheme no group of persons should be held to be more equal than the other group."

The court further directed the Kerala government to establish a fresh commission to go into all the aspects of the matter.

It must be noted that the ruling by apex court has come at a time when the government is in the process of introducing 27 per cent OBC quota in government aided educational institutions-without the exclusion of the affluent among the OBCs.

According to various central and state government notifications, the students categorised under the creamy layer of OBC quota are the children of people holding high government posts or having high income.