Affirmative action in government-run institutes of higher learningextended to India's other backward classes (OBCs) with the Supreme Court upholding 27 percent quota for the community, but clarifying that the creamy layer, or the elite, would be kept out.

The first to be impacted by the crucial judgment were the 1,500 students getting ready for the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) in the country. Within hours of the verdict coming in, the six IIMs decided to defer admission of fresh batches and wait for the central government direction on 27 percent reservation for OBCs.

Once implemented, the new policy would take overall reservation in government-funded higher education institutions like the IIMs and Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) from the current 22.5 (for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) to 49.5 percent.

'We were going to announce the list of fresh batches within two days. But after the reservation development we are putting the exercise on hold,' IIM-Lucknow director Devi Singh told IANS.

'I had an interaction with the director of IIM-Ahmedabad and the decision to defer the admission process for the new batches is unanimous,' Devi Singh said.

The judgment was delivered by a bench, headed by Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, which upheld the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006, passed unanimously by parliament.

The bench, including Justices Arijit Pasayat, C.K. Thakkar, R.V. Raveendran and Dalveer Bhandari, also sought a time-bound review every five years of the effect of the law on the society.

The creamy layers among the OBCs that would not be eligible for the quota include sons and wards of serving as well as former presidents, vice president, prime ministers, ministers, chief ministers, judges of the Supreme Court and high courts, bureaucrats and commissioned military officers.

As consternation spread in campuses all over the country, Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Arjun Singh said Thursday that the verdict would not affect 'any other category of students'.