Karnataka asks Supreme Court to restore SC, ST quota hike struck down by High Court

The arithmetic behind the ceiling argument is simple. With reservation for Other Backward Classes unchanged at 32%, raising the Scheduled Caste share by two points and the Scheduled Tribe share by four lifted total reservation in Karnataka from 50% to 56%, beyond the limit set in the Supreme Court's 1992 Indra Sawhney judgment. The High Court rejected the state's argument that reservation should follow each community's share of the population, and noted that its findings could support measures such as internal reservation within the groups, without justifying a rise above the ceiling.

The state's release describes the verdict differently. It says the High Court held that consultation with the National Commissions for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes was mandatory and that letters sent after the law was passed did not meet that requirement. The judgment itself was not available, so the two accounts cannot be reconciled here. What the state's petition argues will be clear only when it is listed; no hearing date has been given.

The state's case and the Ninth Schedule

The Cabinet decided to challenge the verdict on 15 October, a government order dated 27 October approved the appeal and the petition was filed on 28 October, according to the Chief Minister's Office. Its release lays out a political case as well as a legal one.

The Ninth Schedule is a list of laws that Parliament has placed in a protected category against challenge, and the state calls placing the quota there the only permanent safeguard against future legal challenges. The government says the previous BJP government in the state did not pursue the constitutional route, and cites a statement in Parliament on 21 March 2023 by a Union minister of state that no proposal had reached the Centre. It says it wrote to the Centre two days later. It notes that Karnataka has five Union ministers and 19 Lok Sabha members of the BJP and Janata Dal (Secular), and that no amendment has been introduced.

A special leave petition is the route by which a state or a person asks the Supreme Court to hear an appeal against a High Court judgment. The Court first decides whether to admit it, and it may refuse, issue notice to the other side, or pass interim directions, including on recruitment. The state's petition has not yet been listed, so none of those steps has happened.

Jobs and admissions caught in the middle

The practical stakes are recruitment and admissions. In February 2026 the government approved filling 56,432 vacancies, and it kept an additional six per cent of the posts for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates in a backlog category until the Supreme Court gives its final verdict, so that the extra share would not be lost. An interim order had allowed recruitment already notified before 19 November 2025 to continue, even where it followed the higher quota, and that with the verdict the state must otherwise revert to the earlier reservation framework.

The state also points to its internal reservation within the Scheduled Castes, which is meant to help the most disadvantaged communities. The central question for the Supreme Court is whether a state can exceed the 50% ceiling without exceptional justification. The Court's 1992 ruling allows the limit to be crossed only in extraordinary situations, and the state will have to show one. Until the petition is heard, the High Court's verdict stands.