India, May 14 -- When justice Bhushan Ramakrishna Gavai reflects on his life's journey - from a hut in Frezarpura in Maharashtra to the grand courtroom of the Supreme Court - he often returns to one defining insight: "If today my son studies in a Delhi's top school, how can he be equated with a boy who studies in a school like the one I did, in a slum?"

That belief -- deeply personal and firmly constitutional -- shaped his landmark opinion in August 2024, favouring sub-classification within the Scheduled Caste quota. It was an act not just of judicial interpretation but of lived understanding and of acknowledging that even within historically disadvantaged groups, privilege can accrue and reproduce, and equity must evolve to account for ...