Karnataka cabinet nod for 5-year age relaxation in govt jobs

Bengaluru: The Karnataka Cabinet on Thursday decided to provide a five-year relaxation in age limit to all candidates applying for government jobs across all categories till December 31, 2027, via direct recruitment.

The decision has been taken considering the freeze in recruitments due to issues related to internal reservation for Scheduled Castes and to help the aspirants who have lost opportunities due to the delay in recruitments.

With the latest decision, if the current upper age limit is 35 years to apply for a government job, then it will be revised to 40. This will be applicable to all categories, including SC/ST, OBC and general. 

In September, the government had provided a three-year relaxation in age limit.

Recruitments for government jobs have been paused since October 2024 to finalise internal reservation for the SCs, following the Supreme Court’s August 2024 judgment allowing the states to implement sub-classification of SCs based on empirical data. 

The state government had constituted a one-member commission headed by retired judge Nagamohan Das to study the sub-classification of SCs, halting new recruitment notifications until the report was submitted and a decision on the internal reservation finalised.

The commission submitted its report proposing sub-categorisation based on social, educational and employment backwardness, recommending internal quotas within the 17% SC reservation, leading to the Karnataka SC Sub-Classification Act, 2025. 

Karnataka has around 4 lakh posts lying vacant in various departments for the last 3 years. Highest vacancies are in the department of school education and literacy with 79,694 posts, followed by health and family welfare department with 37,572 and home department with 28,188 posts.

The Cabinet decision comes close on the heels of the High Court on Tuesday orally observing that it has not prevented the government from making recruitments to various vacant posts as per the earlier reservation limit.

Officials apprehensive

Officials say unless there is a G.O. specifying internal quota, they can't proceed with hiring. The KEA alone has received thousands of requests for recruitment tests to various departments.