6.Courts, Caps, and Compromises скачать в хорошем качестве

6.Courts, Caps, and Compromises

In any constitutional system that permits exceptions to equality, courts become the final custodians of balance. They are tasked not with choosing sides, but with preventing principles from dissolving under pressure. In India, the judiciary repeatedly attempted this role in the context of reservation. It did not oppose correction. It sought to discipline it. What follows is not a story of judicial hostility to social justice, but of judicial containment gradually overwhelmed by political permanence. This chapter traces how courts articulated limits—through the 50 percent principle, the creamy layer doctrine, and conditionality—how those limits were contested, diluted, and reinterpreted, and why courts ultimately retreated into deference. The result was not judicial surrender. It was judicial exhaustion.