State Cabinet may decide on quota promotion law: SC

The Supreme Court was on Tuesday informed that the Karnataka Cabinet may decide on implementing its 2017 law that restored the reservation in promotion for the SC/ST employees, who were reverted to their posts in compliance to the apex court’s judgement quashing such a provision.

A bench of Justices U U Lalit and D Y Chandrachud, which is hearing a batch of petitions questioning the validity of the new law, however, refrained from passing any order on the issue.

Senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan, along with advocate Kumar Parimal, raised the issue, citing news reports about the possibility of the state Cabinet going ahead with the implementation of the law.

Notably, an application filed by the state government seeking permission for it is pending with the court.

The top court had earlier recorded a submission by the state government which sought to withdraw an oral assurance by Advocate General Udaya Holla for not implementing the law.

Meanwhile, senior advocate Nidhesh Gupta appearing for some of the SC/ST employees, maintained that the reservation in promotion was a matter which has been accepted by this court from the very outset and it is
not something which has
been introduced by way of the 77th Constitutional Amendment.

“A reading of the various apex court judgments makes it very clear that this court has consistently opined on the importance of
providing for reservation in selection posts. It is apparent that the source of power was always available under Article 16(4) of the Constitution,” he said.

Gupta maintained that Article 16(4A) spoke of “any class or classes of posts”.

This class or classes of posts was obviously referring to a “class” or “group” of posts and not to a “cadre”.

The Indra Sawhney judgement noted that individual survey is out of question, since Article 16(4) speaks of class protection and not individual protection, he added. He said inadequate representation was to be seen in the services under the state and not only in a particular cadre.

The counsel called as “fallacious” a contention made by the general category of employees the exercise for collection of data stood vitiated for considering the creamy layer aspect.