Quashing quota in promotion may lead to unrest, Centre tells SC

The Union Government has told the Supreme Court that quashing reservations in the promotion of SC/ST employees in government jobs may lead to “employee unrest” and “multiple litigations”.

The government also maintained that its policy on reservation in promotion was compliant with the top court's judgement, including the conditions like collections of quantifiable data, adequacy of representation and overall impact on the efficiency of administration laid down in the M Nagaraj case (2006).

In an affidavit filed before a bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and B R Gavai, the Centre claimed the representation of SCs/STs in government jobs is inadequate, while the grant of reservation does not in any manner hamper the administration.

“If the case is not allowed, it would necessitate withdrawal of the benefits of reservation in promotion granted to SC/ST employees. This may lead to reversions of SC and ST employees, re-fixation of their salaries including re-fixation of pension of many employees who may have retired in the meantime, recovery of excess salaries/pension so paid to them. This would lead to multiple litigations and employee unrest,” the Centre said.

It also asserted that administrative efficiency is ensured through the system of the Annual Performance Assessment Report which captures the assessment of work output, personal attributes and functional competency of each officer.

The Centre further submitted data from 75 ministries and departments under its jurisdiction and said out of 27,55,430 total employees, 4,79,301 are SCs, 2,14,738 are STs and the number of OBC employees is 4, 57,148.

In a judgement on January 28, the court had directed the Centre to file an affidavit on the contemporaneous data that is available to the government along with “application of mind” on data for providing reservation in promotion to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in government jobs.

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