'Karnataka disregarded apex court ruling on quota'

A group of general category employees on Thursday contended before the Supreme Court that the Karnataka government enacted a fresh law to grant the benefit of reservation in promotion to the SC/ST staff in contravention of the Constitution bench rulings in 2006 M Nagaraj and 2018 Jarnail Singh. Besides ignoring the creamy layer principle, the state government also disregarded criteria of collecting cadre-wise data on strength of staff and impact of reservation in promotion on overall efficiency, they said.

Also read: Lift status quo on SC/ST quota law

A bench of Justices U U Lalit and D Y Chandrachud wrapped up hearing arguments on behalf of general category employees, led by B K Pavitra. Senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan, Shekhar Naphade, Puneet Jain and Kumar Parimal represented the petitioners’ side.

The Karnataka government, represented by senior advocate Basava Prabhu Patil, initiated submission on behalf of the state and would continue on November 27, the next date of hearing. He read out the previous orders issued by the court in Pavitra case.

The petitioners have challenged the constitutional validity of The Karnataka Extension of Consequential Seniority to Government Servants Promoted on the Basis of Reservation (To the Posts in the Civil Services of the State) Act, 2017.

They claimed that the new law was passed with an aim to surpass the apex court’s decision of February 9, 2017, wherein the reservation in promotion to the SC/ST employees was quashed on the ground that the mandatory exercise of collecting empirical data on representation as per the mandate of the M Nagaraj judgement was not undertaken.

A group of SC/ST employees also approached the top court seeking direction to implement the law on reservation in promotion.