Bengaluru: The Supreme Court on Thursday held that an exercise to determine inadequacy of representation, backwardness and overall efficiency is “a must” before granting promotion to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes employees.
The Supreme Court bench comprising Justices U U Lalith and Adarsh Kumar Goel court while hearing a petition filed by B K Pavithra and others maintained that the State does not have unbridled powers to provide promotion in reservation to the backward classes without carrying out the requisite exercise and ruled as invalid the consequential seniority in promotions awarded by the state government for SC/ST employees since 1978.
With this verdict a huge overhaul across all levels is set to take place for hundreds of employees across 63 departments of the state government. While the order has fixed a three-month period for demoting those promoted under the reserved category, those in the General and Other Backward categories awaiting promotions for years may get their due.
The SC called for “doing away with the ‘catch up rule’ and providing for consequential seniority under Sections 3 and 4 to persons belonging to SCs and STs on promotion against roster points to be ultra vires Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution”. The court added that “the judgment will not affect those who have already retired and will not affect financial benefits already taken. Thirty-five consequential promotions granted to serving employees, based on consequential seniority benefit, will be treated as ad hoc and liable to be reviewed. Seniority list may now be revised in the light of this judgment within three months from today.”
Law minister TB Jayachandra was unavailable for comment on this issue.
