'Tell govt to enforce law on SC/ST promotion quota'

The Karnataka State Government SC/ST Employees Federation on Monday sought the Supreme Court to issue a direction to the government to implement the law passed to safeguard the reservation in promotion to staff from the oppressed class.

A bench of Justices Kurian Joseph and A M Khanwilkar, however, told the counsel representing the Federation that nothing survived in the matter after the pronouncement of the judgement by a five-judge bench in the M Nagaraj case on September 26.

Senior advocate Indira Jaising, who happened to be present in the courtroom, pointed out that a separate petition challenging the validity of the law passed by the Karnataka legislature was pending consideration before a separate bench. The bench then ordered to list the matter along with the pending matter.

A bench of Justices U U Lalit and D Y Chandrachud will, on Tuesday, take up a batch of petitions arising out of compliance of the February 9, 2017 judgement by a two-judge bench as well as fresh petitions challenging the validity of the new law.

The Karnataka Extension of Consequential Seniority to Government Servants Promoted on the Basis of Reservation (To the Posts in the Civil Services of the State) Act, 2017, has been passed to protect reservation in promotion to SC/ST employees.

A group of petitioners, belonging to general category of employees, however, claimed it was intended to nullify the apex court's judgement of February 9, 2017 in the B K Pavithra case. The top court had then struck down reservation in promotions for SC/ST employees after having noted that the mandatory exercise of collecting empirical data on representation as per the mandate of the M Nagaraj judgement was not undertaken, among others.

The new legislation has come into existence after its publication in the gazette on June 23 this year.

On October 12, the Karnataka government told the court that it wanted to withdraw its oral assurance that it would not take any action in accordance with the new law passed to ensure reservation in promotion to employees belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.