The Constitution of India
Article 342A
Socially and educationally backward classes
(1) The President may with respect to any State or Union territory, and where it is a State, after consultation with the Governor thereof, by public notification, specify the socially and educationally backward classes in the Central List which shall for the purposes of the Central Government be deemed to be socially and educationally backward classes in relation to that State or Union territory, as the case may be.
(2) Parliament may by law include in or exclude from the Central List of socially and educationally backward classes specified in a notification issued under clause (1) any socially and educationally backward class, but save as aforesaid a notification issued under the said clause shall not be varied by any subsequent notification. Explanation.—For the purposes of clauses (1) and (2), the expression “Central List” means the list of socially and educationally backward classes prepared and maintained by and for the Central Government.
(3) Notwithstanding any contained in clauses (1) and (2), every State or Union territory may, by law, prepare and maintain, for its own purposes, a list of socially and educationally backward classes, entries in which may be different from the Central List.
Why this exists
Article 342A was inserted by the Constitution (102nd Amendment) Act, 2018, to create a formal, uniform national mechanism for identifying socially and educationally backward classes (commonly called OBCs), similar to the existing mechanisms for Scheduled Castes (Article 341) and Scheduled Tribes (Article 342). It aimed to reduce arbitrariness and politicisation in recognising backward classes by centralising the process through presidential notification and parliamentary oversight, while still respecting India's federal structure by allowing states a role.
How courts read it
In Jaishri Laxmanrao Patil v. State of Maharashtra (2021), the Maratha reservation case, the Supreme Court initially interpreted the newly inserted Article 342A (as it stood after the 102nd Amendment) to mean that States had lost their power to independently identify SEBCs, and only the President's Central List had legal force. This ruling caused widespread concern among States about loss of autonomy over backward-class classification. In response, Parliament passed the Constitution (105th Amendment) Act, 2021, which inserted clause (3), expressly restoring and clarifying that States and Union Territories retain the power to prepare and maintain their own separate SEBC lists.
Common misconceptions
Myth: After Article 342A was added, only the central government's list of backward classes matters, and states can no longer make their own lists.
Fact: While courts initially read the original 2018 text this way in the Maratha reservation case, Parliament clarified through the 105th Amendment (2021) that clause (3) expressly preserves every State's and Union Territory's power to maintain its own separate SEBC list by law.
Myth: The Central List and a State's list must be identical.
Fact: The Article explicitly allows a State's list to have different entries from the Central List, since they serve different governmental purposes.