Supreme Court: The Vacation Bench comprising of Adarsh Kumar Goel and Ashok Bhushan JJ., allowed the Centre to go ahead with the reservation in promotion for employees belonging to the cadre of SC/ST in accordance to law.
Centre had stated various submissions for explaining their concern on the whole process of promotion being “standstill” due to the various orders passed by the High Courts and apex court. The government also cited the cases on the issue of quota in promotion in government jobs by placing the apex court’s decision in M Nagaraj v. Union of India, (2006) 8 SCC 212 would be applicable, as in reference to the said case, creamy layer concept cannot be applied to the ST/SC for promotions as decided in the verdict of Indra Sawhney v. Union of India; 1992 Supp (3) SCC 210 and E.V Chinnaiah v. State of A.P; (2005) 1 SCC 394.
ASG Mahinder Singh also referred to an order passed on May 17th in which it was said that “pendency of petition before it shall not stand in the way of the Centre taking steps for the promotion”. He also mentioned Article 16 (4A) of the Constitution, which enabled the state to provide reservation in matters of promotion to SC/ST which in its view was not effectively represented for services.
By a decision of the Supreme Court in M Nagaraj v. Union of India (2006) 8 SCC 212, the constitutional validity of Article 16(4), (4A) and (4B) was upheld.
Subsequent to the pronouncement of law in M Nagaraj, there were decisions by the Supreme Court stating that the government could not blindly provide for reservation in promotions, in favour of SCs and STs unless, prior thereto, the requisite exercise, to acquire quantifiable data regarding lack of representation of SCs and STs in public services was undertaken.
On noting the Delhi High Court verdict of August 23, 2017, in which the government was restrained from granting any reservation, in promotion to SC/ST, in exercise of the power conferred by Article 16 (4A) of the Constitution, without, in the first instance, carrying out the necessary preliminary exercise of acquiring quantifiable data indicating inadequacy of representation, the instant petition was filed and till any further decision of the Constitution bench, as per law permission has been granted in regard to the promotions. [State of Maharashtra v. Vijay Ghogre, 2018 SCC OnLine SC 589, order dated 05-06-2018]
