Special Provisions Relating to Certain Classes: Seats, Not Just Jobs and Seats in Colleges

This site's own Fundamental Rights note already covers reservation in public employment and education in real depth: Articles 15(4) through 16(4B), the 50% ceiling and creamy layer from Indra Sawhney (1992), and the EWS quota upheld in Janhit Abhiyan (2022). None of that is repeated here. Part XVI of the Constitution (Articles 330 to 342) covers a genuinely different mechanism entirely, reserved seats in legislatures, not reserved posts or college seats, and this chapter's own content is that mechanism.

Article 330 and 332: reserved seats, not reserved quotas

Article 330 reserves seats for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the House of the People (Lok Sabha), and Article 332 does the same for State Legislative Assemblies, in each case roughly in proportion to the SC/ST share of the relevant population. This is a structurally different device from reservation in jobs or admissions: a reserved constituency is still contested by all voters in that constituency, but only a candidate belonging to the reserved community may stand for election from it, guaranteeing representation in the legislature itself rather than access to a post or an educational seat.

Article 335: the administrative-efficiency proviso

Article 335 requires that the claims of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes be taken into consideration, consistently with the maintenance of efficiency of administration, in making appointments to services and posts under the Union or a state. This proviso is the constitutional anchor several of the Fundamental Rights note's own reservation cases wrestle with, whether relaxing a qualifying standard or extending reservation to promotions is compatible with this efficiency requirement, though the case law itself is covered there, not repeated here.

The 104th Amendment, 2019: extension and a genuine removal

The Constitution (One Hundred and Fourth Amendment) Act, 2019 did two things worth holding separately. It extended the reservation of seats for SCs and STs under Articles 330 and 332 for a further ten years, until 2030, the latest in a series of decennial extensions this reservation has received since 1950. It also, in the same amendment, removed entirely the separate provision that had allowed the nomination of Anglo-Indian members to the Lok Sabha and to state Legislative Assemblies where the community was thought to be inadequately represented; those nominated seats no longer exist at all, rather than merely being extended. A statement treating the 104th Amendment as only an extension, without the Anglo-Indian removal, is missing half of what it actually did.

Quick revision points

• Article 330: SC/ST seat reservation in the Lok Sabha. Article 332: the same in State Legislative Assemblies. A reserved constituency is contested by all voters; only a candidate from the reserved community may stand.
• Article 335: SC/ST claims to services and posts considered consistently with maintaining administrative efficiency.
• 104th Amendment, 2019: extended Articles 330/332 reservation for 10 more years, to 2030, and removed the Anglo-Indian nominated-seat provision entirely, not merely left it unextended.
• Reservation in employment and education (Articles 15(4)-16(4B), the 50% ceiling, EWS) is covered in this site's own Fundamental Rights note; this chapter's own content is legislative seat reservation specifically.

Keeping "reserved seats in a legislature" (Articles 330/332) and "reserved posts or admissions" (Articles 15/16) as two distinct mechanisms, rather than one blended concept of "reservation," is what this chapter's own statement-based questions are built to test.