Tamil Nadu in its counter affidavit filed in the Supreme Court has justified its policy of providing 69 per cent reservation to the OBCs, ST/SCs and socially and educationally backward classes in the state for admission to educational institutions.

Tamil Nadu has also pleaded before the apex court that there cannot be any simple formula for derterminig creamy layer for their exclusion from the benefits of the reservation.

According to the State, 88 per cent of its population belonged to the reserved categories like the OBCs, SC/ST, socially and educationally backward classes.

The state also contended that 68 per cent reservation had been enforced in the state since 1980 and the Tamil Nadu Backward Classes SC/ST (Reservation of seats in private educational institutions) Act 2006 was introduced only after 93rd constitutional amendment.

A bench comprising Justices Arijit Pasayat and P Sadasivam granted four weeks time to the petitioner NGO Voice to file its rejoinder to the counter affidavit of the state government.

The state government has cited the example of farmers whose income may be good when the crop is bumper and his income may go down drastically if there is drought and in such a case, in one year he may be included in the creamy layer but in another year he may be out of it.

According to the state government, caste is not the sole criteria for providing reservation in admissions, it is one of several criterion.