K'taka's restoring cadre, pay scale to SC/ST challenged

A plea was filed on Thursday in the Supreme Court seeking a stay of the Karnataka government's order, issued "hurriedly" a day before restoring cadre and pay scales of thousands of SC/ST employees, who were demoted in terms of the top court's judgement in the B K Pavitra case.

Senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan and advocate Kumar Parimal, appearing for the general category of employees, mentioned the application before a bench presided over by Justice U U Lalit, seeking urgent hearing.

"The state, by its order on February 27, has wilfully and deliberately flouted the orders passed in contempt proceedings, which are still pending. Thus, the act of the state is not only audacious violation of the undertaking given to this court at the time of hearing of the contempt petition and writ petitions but also contemptuous," the counsel said.

The court agreed to post the application for consideration on Friday before the bench, also consisting of Justice D Y Chandrachud.

Notably, the apex court is seized up with a batch of petitions filed by general category of employees seeking directions to the state government to comply with February 9, 2017 judgement, which had quashed the law granting reservation in promotion to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe employees.

Besides, separate writ petitions have been filed against the Karnataka government's fresh law, passed last year, to nullify the impact of the judgement.

Final arguments were advanced before the court on several dates. It was heard the last time on February 13 and has now been posted for consideration on March 13.

The application contended, "the government order shows that defiance is apparent and the action of the state must be treated as deliberate and intentional."

"It is relevant to point out here that the undertaking given by the Advocate General for the state to maintain status quo has been altered at the fag end of hearing, particularly when the act was published in Karnataka State Gazette on 23.6.2018 but the same was never implemented," it said.