— ✍️Aditi Raibole

On January 6, 2026, the Supreme Court delivered a judgment that will reshape the lives of millions of UPSC aspirants. The case Union of India vs. G. Kiran, which held that candidates who avail reservation-related relaxations at any stage of the UPSC examination are ineligible for unreserved vacancies. The case involved G. Kiran, a Scheduled Caste candidate who ranked 19th in the 2013 Indian Forest Service examination, and Antony Mariyappa, a General category candidate who ranked 37th.

The case centres around G. Kiran, a Scheduled Caste candidate who scored 19th in the 2013 Indian Forest Service exam, and Antony Mariyappa, a General category candidate who came in at 37th. Despite Kiran's stronger performance in the key stages of the exam, the Supreme Court decided to allocate a Karnataka cadre vacancy to Mariyappa, leaving Kiran with a posting in Tamil Nadu. The Court's reasoning hinged on one crucial detail: Kiran had taken advantage of the relaxed cutoff for Scheduled Caste candidates during the Preliminary Examination, scoring 247 marks against the SC cutoff of 233, which was still below the General category cutoff of 267. This use of relaxation at what the Court referred to as "any stage" of the examination effectively barred Kiran from competing for unreserved vacancies, even though his overall merit was clearly superior based on his Main Examination and Interview results.

The Legal Framework: the "Any Stage" Doctrine

The judgment's legal basis lies in Rule 14(ii) of the Indian Forest Service Examination Rules, 2013, which states that candidates belonging to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, or Other Backward Classes who are recommended "without resorting to any relaxations/concessions in the eligibility or selection criteria, at any stage of the examination, shall not be adjusted against the vacancies reserved" for these categories.

The High Court of Karnataka found this absurd. In their (now overturned) judgment, they wrote: "The Preliminary Examination is merely a screening test...To deny allocation to a meritorious candidate on the pretext of relaxation availed in a stage that doesn't even form the basis of final merit violates principles of substantive equality." However, Justice J.K. Maheshwari's opinion adopts a literal interpretation, highlighting that "any stage" is explicit and encompasses the Preliminary Examination even though marks obtained do not count in final merit.

The Court explained that the examination is a cohesive two-step process, where passing the Preliminary stage allows candidates to move on to the Main Examination. Thus, any leniency at this initial stage can permanently affect later performance, no matter how well a candidate might do when compared to general standards. This raises an important question: Does this ruling effectively set aside "unreserved" seats for upper castes? Functionally, yes, though not legally. Across five hundred unreserved seats annually, this produces approximately 75 to 100 instances where higher-ranked reserved category candidates are displaced by lower-ranked upper-caste candidates, a systematic inversion of merit-based selection that the judgment rationalises through the "any stage" doctrine.

Deconstructing Merit

Justice Maheshwari defines merit as performance achieved without using any relaxation or concession at any stage of the examination. This definition rests on three troubling assumptions. First, it assumes that standardised examinations measure ability fairly, without being influenced by social and economic background. Second, it treats any form of assistance as an unfair advantage, rather than as a tool to correct unequal starting points. Third, it assumes that the conditions that allow for performance don’t matter when we’re evaluating the fairness of the outcome. The statement “without SC cutoff relaxation, Kiran would have been eliminated at the prelims” might be true, but is it really fair? It implies that needing some support to get into a competition somehow diminishes the importance of the skills shown once you’re in.

Invisible Advantage: Cultural Capital and Examination Bias

Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's theory of cultural capital reveals that standardised tests don’t truly measure raw intelligence or hard work; instead, they favour certain types of knowledge, skills, and attitudes that come from having a privileged social background. The structure of the UPSC exam itself includes what we might call "invisible relaxations" that give an unfair edge to upper-caste candidates.

The examination is conducted in English and Hindi, languages requiring years of institutional access to master. According to the India Human Development Survey conducted between 2011 and 2012, 91.2 per cent of upper-caste students attend English-medium schools, compared to 28.7 per cent of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe students, creating a 62.5 percentage-point gap that translates directly into performance advantages across all subjects, articulation quality of answers, and interview effectiveness.

Quantifying Structural Advantage

When these advantages are disaggregated, an upper-caste candidate scoring 270 in the Prelims may have benefited from structural privileges worth approximately 100 to 140 marks, including elite coaching, qualified teachers, economic security for full-time preparation, and mentorship networks. These remain invisible within formal merit frameworks because they operate through privatised, pre-examination mechanisms. On the contrary, when a Scheduled Caste candidate scores 247 by taking advantage of a 34-mark cutoff relaxation, they’re essentially balancing out significant structural disadvantages like the high cost of coaching, lack of mentorship, and ongoing caste-based discrimination.

Ambedkar's Warning: Perpetuating Disparity Through Formal Equality

Dr B.R. Ambedkar's vision for the constitution, shared during the Constituent Assembly debates in November 1948, clearly dismissed the idea of merit as mere performance. Instead, he championed merit as representation. He argued that applying formal equality to fundamentally unequal groups only serves to maintain the existing disparities, stating, "What is the use of saying that you are treating untouchables equally with other people? You are not. What you are doing is perpetuating the existing disparity and bringing it to a point where you will say that we want to maintain it." Ambedkar recognised that rules appearing neutral on their face can function as mechanisms of exclusion when applied to populations with radically different access to resources, institutional support, and social capital. The Supreme Court's judgment in G. Kiran exemplifies this phenomenon precisely, deploying procedural neutrality to produce substantively unequal outcomes that entrench upper-caste dominance in civil services.

This outcome raises serious questions about whether it aligns with the constitutional principles laid out in Articles 14 and 16. Article 14 emphasises equality, yet it seems unfair to treat candidates with the same final scores differently based on preliminary cutoffs, especially when that initial screening doesn’t contribute any marks to the final merit. This approach arguably goes against the "equality among equals" principle. By distinguishing between candidates who have demonstrated equal merit based on a qualifying round that’s excluded from the final assessment, we create an arbitrary classification that jeopardises fair distribution and the established legal framework surrounding merit-based selection.

Article 16(4) allows for reservations for backward classes that are "not adequately represented" in state services. The Supreme Court's ruling in Indra Sawhney vs. Union of India (1992) clarified that the purpose of reservation is to ensure representation, not just to provide access to reserved seats. If high-achieving candidates from reserved categories are consistently denied access to unreserved seats despite having better final scores, it skews representation in services towards upper castes. This situation could undermine the constitutional goal of Article 16(4) to ensure adequate representation for all social groups.

Conclusion

The key issue raised by the G. Kiran judgment isn’t about merit itself, but rather how we define and implement merit within an inherently unequal society. When an SC candidate uses age relaxation of one or two years, it is not a concession to incompetence but a limited attempt to compensate for deeply entrenched structural disadvantages in education, social capital, and access to opportunities. By holding that a candidate who avails such relaxation is therefore barred from competing for unreserved seats, the judgment effectively penalises those who require compensation to reach the starting line. In contrast, upper-caste candidates are treated as neutral bearers of merit precisely because they never needed relaxation, their advantage having been built invisibly into the system from the outset.

This approach reveals the illusion of procedural neutrality. The law applies a facade of equality to fundamentally unequal groups, which ends up reinforcing caste privilege while pretending to be fair.

The key questions aren't about who gets the highest score on a single test, but rather who can govern effectively in a diverse democracy, whose life experiences shape our institutions, and whose inclusion guarantees a more equitable society. This calls for a fresh perspective on merit, moving beyond just narrow performance metrics to embrace collective representation and a more nuanced understanding of judgment. If we don’t make this change, the law could end up reinforcing exactly what Ambedkar cautioned against: maintaining existing hierarchies while using the language of equality to mask the unequal social realities we face.

- Aditi Raibole is a first-year law student at Government Law College. She completed her graduation in B.A. (Hons.) Sociology from Lady Shri Ram College, University of Delhi. Her academic interests focus on the social and legal dimensions of caste and gender, and her work is guided by a strong commitment to equality and social justice.