Supreme Court refuses interim order on promotion of SC/ST employees

The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to consider a plea by the Union government for clarification on an order, passed on April 15, 2019, to maintain status quo on reservation in promotion to the SC/ST employees.

"We are not going to disturb the order of status quo as of now. In the interest of justice, we will hear the matter finally after four weeks," a bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justice L Nageswara Rao orally told Attorney General K K Venugopal.

Senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan, along with advocate Kumar Parimal, appearing for general category of employees, opposed the plea for passing any interim order in the matter. They said that the matter should be heard in physical courts instead of the virtual one.

On this, the bench said a seven-judge panel was considering the issue of resumption of physical courts which is likely to determine the issue within four weeks. So all these instant matters would be taken up after four weeks, the bench added.

The Centre was concerned particularly with the fact that as on January 31, 2020, more than 1.3 lakh promotions were held up in 23 out of a total of 78 departments, causing resentment and financial loss to the employee.

In an application, the Union government sought permission to make "ad-hoc promotions to the large number of vacant posts" subject to outcome of the cases.

It said, "the status quo ordered on April 15, 2019 has resulted in a complete stoppage of all promotions" in reserved and general category.

It said a significant numbers of government servants were retiring every month without getting the promotions due to them. "This is causing resentment, demoralisation and confusion amongst a large section of the government servants, besides financial losses," it said.

In the pandemic, government employees are at the forefront of providing various relief measures to the public and it is important to keep up their morale, the government further said.

It submitted that the application was necessitated as previously the court by its order on May 17, 2018 and June 5, 2018 permitted for going ahead with the promotion.

The Delhi High Court has on August 23, 2017 quashed the office memorandum of August 13, 1997 providing for reservation in promotions to the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs).

The special leave petition by the Union government is still pending before the top court.