The Supreme Court on Thursday said that its 2004 decision needs to be reconsidered stating that states do not have the power to subclass the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes to provide reservations in jobs and admissions in educational institutions is.

A five-judge bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra said that the 2004 judgment of the Constitution Bench in the EV Chinnaiah case needs to be revisited and hence the matter should be placed before the Chief Justice for proper directions.

The bench also consisted of Justice Indira Banerjee, Justice Vineet Saran, Justice MR Shah, and Justice Anirudh Bose. The bench said that in its view, the 2004 decision was not taken properly and the states could enact laws to subclass castes within the Scheduled Castes / Scheduled Tribes to give preference to a particular caste.

The bench referred the matter filed by the Punjab government against the High Court order to Chief Justice SA Bobde to set up a larger bench to reconsider the old verdict.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court had repealed a state law that empowered the government to subclassify SC / ST to grant reservation.

The High Court cited the Supreme Court's 2004 judgment for this and said that the Punjab government did not have the power to subclassify SC / ST.