In a significant development for better assessment of how the reservation policy benefits are distributed across different caste groups of future civil servants, the Central Information Commission (CIC) has suggested the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) to include sub-caste details in the final lists of the Civil Services Exam (CSE).
The commission underlined that adding sub-caste details alongside aggregated categories could help ensure that the benefits of reservation reach a wider and more diverse range of communities.
The CIC’s recommendation was made while disposing of an appeal by an RTI applicant seeking caste-wise details of candidates selected to the IAS through the 1995 CSE conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC).
The DoPT submitted that service allocation data is maintained only at the level of broad social categories such as SC, ST, and OBC and not at the sub-caste level, and records dating back to 1995 were not traceable.
The DoPT, however, added that the list of candidates allocated to services on the basis of CSE-2017 onwards is available on the department’s portal.
The CIC noted that while such detailed data was not available on record, there was a “plausible scope” for including sub-caste information in future disclosures.
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