The 50% Reservation Ceiling: Three Courts, One Question | CLAT Explainer

VIDEO EXPLAINER | 11 OCTOBER 2026

On a single day, 9 October 2026, three courts dealt with the same constitutional question: can reservation go above 50%? The Madhya Pradesh High Court struck down a 2019 amendment that had raised OBC reservation from 14% to 27%. The Supreme Court dismissed the Andhra Pradesh government’s appeal against a High Court ruling that had cut back a 34% BC quota in rural local bodies. And a three-judge bench of the Bombay High Court began a fresh hearing of the challenge to the Maharashtra SEBC Act, 2024, which gives 10% reservation to Marathas. This explainer sets out what each court did and the law that ties the three together.

1. Madhya Pradesh: OBC quota back to 14%

A Division Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, Justices Anand Pathak and Vinay Saraf, struck down the 2019 amendment that raised reservation for Other Backward Classes from 14% to 27%. OBC reservation in the State therefore stays at 14%. The lead case was Ashita Dubey & Ors v State of Madhya Pradesh, decided in a 159-page judgment.

The arithmetic explains why. Madhya Pradesh reserves 16% for Scheduled Castes and 20% for Scheduled Tribes. Adding OBC at 27% takes the vertical (caste-based) reservation to 63%, and to 73% once the 10% EWS quota is counted. The court held that no “extraordinary situation” had been shown to justify crossing 50%, relying on Indra Sawhney and Jaishri Laxmanrao Patil. In its words, the case was “not about grant of reservation but extent of reservation.” Selections made between 2 September 2019 and 29 September 2022 were protected.

2. Andhra Pradesh: the Supreme Court says no

On 1 October 2026, the Andhra Pradesh High Court (Chief Justice Lisa Gill and Justice Challa Gunaranjan) struck down two government orders: G.O.Ms.No.105 (20 August 2026), which gave 34% reservation to Backward Classes in Gram Panchayats, Mandal Praja Parishads and Zilla Praja Parishads, and G.O.Rt.No.1065 (19 August 2026), which gave 33.33% to BCs in urban local bodies. The orders fell to the extent that SC + ST + BC reservation together exceeded 50%. The High Court also said the State’s Unified Family Survey data “cannot form the basis” of the quota, and directed that the polls begin within six weeks.

On 9 October 2026, a Supreme Court bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Sheel Nagu dismissed the State’s special leave petition (Andhra Pradesh v Thandava Yogesh). Justice Datta asked under what law the family survey had been made, and the bench called the High Court’s order reasonable.

3. Maharashtra: the Maratha quota, heard afresh

The same day, a three-judge bench of the Bombay High Court, Justices M.S. Karnik, N.J. Jamadar and Sandeep Marne, began a fresh hearing of the petitions challenging the Maharashtra SEBC Act, 2024, which provides 10% reservation for Marathas in education and public jobs. It is the third time the hearing has restarted since 2024. Until the court decides, admissions and appointments made under the Act remain subject to the outcome. This is the second round for the Maratha quota: in 2021 the Supreme Court struck down the earlier 2018 SEBC Act for breaching the 50% limit.

The law behind all three

The 50% rule is not written in the Constitution. It comes from Indra Sawhney v Union of India (16 November 1992), decided by a nine-judge bench: reservation should not exceed 50%, save in extraordinary situations. In Jaishri Laxmanrao Patil (5 May 2021), a five-judge bench applied the rule to strike down the Maratha quota under the 2018 Act.

For local bodies there is an extra layer. In Vikas Kishanrao Gawali v State of Maharashtra (4 March 2021) the Supreme Court laid down the triple test for OBC reservation in local bodies: (1) a dedicated commission to inquire into backwardness, (2) the proportion of reservation specified local-body-wise, and (3) SC + ST + OBC reservation not exceeding 50% in aggregate. It builds on K. Krishna Murthy v Union of India (2010). The Andhra Pradesh High Court relied on Gawali.

What about the 10% EWS quota, which takes many States above 50%? In Janhit Abhiyan v Union of India (7 November 2022), the Supreme Court upheld the 103rd Amendment by a 3:2 majority. The majority read the 50% ceiling as applying to the backward-class reservations under Articles 15(4), 15(5) and 16(4), and declined to stretch it to EWS. And Tamil Nadu’s 69%? Its 1993 Act was placed in the Ninth Schedule by the 76th Amendment (1994), although I.R. Coelho (2007) makes Ninth Schedule laws inserted after 24 April 1973 open to judicial review.

Sources

India TV and Lawbeat (9 Oct 2026) on the Madhya Pradesh High Court judgment; Lawbeat (9 Oct 2026), The Hans India (10 Oct 2026) and the LiveLaw Supreme Court round-up (9 Oct 2026) on the Andhra Pradesh appeal; Free Press Journal (9 Oct 2026) and LiveLaw (18 Sep 2026) on the Bombay High Court hearing; the judgments in Indra Sawhney, Jaishri Laxmanrao Patil, Vikas Kishanrao Gawali and Janhit Abhiyan; the Constitution of India.