A constitutional bench of the Karnataka High Court, sitting on Monday, struck down provisions at the heart of a 2022 state law that had expanded reservation allocations for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The two-judge panel was headed by Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru, sitting alongside Justice K.S. Hemalekha.

In her ruling, Justice Hemalekha held that stacking cumulative vertical reservations past the 50 per cent ceiling that constitutional jurisprudence has long maintained runs counter to the fundamental rights enshrined in India's Constitution. The bench invalidated the legislative provisions that had broadened reservation thresholds across both state-run educational institutions and government employment.

Under the Karnataka Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Reservation of Seats in Educational Institutions and of Appointments or Posts in the Services under the State) Act, 2022, reservation percentages for Scheduled Castes had been lifted from 15 per cent to 17 per cent and for Scheduled Tribes from 3 per cent to 7 per cent — a framework the court's ruling has now struck down.

Ruling that aggregate reservation levels beyond the 50 per cent mark run counter to Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution — which protect equality before the law and bar discrimination respectively — the bench struck down Section 3 of the 2022 Act as constitutionally invalid. Section 4 of the statute, which sought to broaden reservation quotas for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes within state public-service appointments, was invalidated by the bench on the basis that its provisions stood in conflict with Articles 14 and 16 — the constitutional protections guaranteeing equal opportunity in government employment.

The bench, drawing on binding constitutional precedent, held that the 50 per cent cap on reservations — first fixed by the Supreme Court of India in its 1992 Indra Sawhney ruling against the Union of India and carried forward through every subsequent constitutional bench decision — stands as a firm outer boundary that courts may look past only where exceptional and well-founded circumstances are demonstrated.

Two writ petitions challenging the lawfulness of lifting the state's overall reservation ceiling from 50 per cent to 56 per cent brought the matter before the court as a question of constitutional validity. The legal challenges took aim at a combined reservation figure — drawing on allocations for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes — that brought the total share of state-level quotas to 56 per cent.

A petition lodged by Mahendra Kumar Mitra, who holds the position of state president within the Dr. Ambedkar Scheduled Castes Federation, ranked among the lead filings placed before the court. Three civil engineering graduates — Sagar H.R., Prajwal Kumar D., and Purushottam Gowda G.M. — brought a joint petition before the courts after applying for Assistant Engineer (Civil) posts within the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike, with the petition taking aim at changes made to the selection roster.

The law was drafted and approved by the Karnataka Legislative Assembly while Basavaraj Bommai held the chief ministerial post under a Bharatiya Janata Party administration. Formal assent from the Karnataka Governor reached the legislation on 11 January 2023, with its entry into the Karnataka Gazette following a day later on 12 January 2023.

Demographic representation studies submitted by Justice (Retd.) H.N. Nagamohan Das Commission formed the foundation upon which the expanded statutory quota provisions were constructed. Findings drawn from the Nagamohan Das Commission were supplemented by assessments that a high-level panel, convened under the chairmanship of retired High Court judge Justice Subhash B. Adi, had independently prepared.