Ordinance on SC/ST quota hike soon, says Sriramulu

The Karnataka government will promulgate an ordinance to increase the SC/ST reservation, Scheduled Tribes Welfare Minister B Sriramulu said Monday.

The ordinance, once promulgated, will increase reservation for SCs from 15 per cent to 17 per cent and for STs from 3 per cent to 7 per cent. This will take the reservation tally in Karnataka to 56 per cent, above the 50 per cent limit fixed by the Supreme Court in the Indira Sawhney judgement.

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"The ordinance will be promulgated in a day or two. The process has started," Sriramulu told reporters. "The benefit of the increase in reservation will become available for the SC/STs from the date on which the ordinance is promulgated," the minister said, adding that the government would recommend bringing the quota hike under the 9th Schedule of the Constitution to give it legal protection.

Earlier, the government wanted to issue an executive order hiking the SC/ST quota, followed by a gazette notification. However, last week, retired High Court Justice HN Nagamohan Das, who headed a commission that recommended the SC/ST quota hike, met Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and reportedly asked him to consider promulgating an ordinance instead of an executive order.