SC dismisses plea for post-based reservation in Karnataka

The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a plea by a group of general category employees of Karnataka for applying 'post-based reservation' and the principle of creamy layer at entry level in public employment.

A special bench of Justices U U Lalit and D Y Chandrachud said the application was not maintainable in view of B K Pavitra II judgement passed on May 10, 2019.

The top court had then upheld the validity of the Karnataka's 2018 law for granting reservation in promotion to the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe employees as per the judgement in the B K Pavitra case.

In its judgement, the court said the petitioners led by Pavitra would have liberty to approach the High Court, challenging validity of the state government's circulars issued on May 15, 2019 and June 24, 2019 for implementing the law on reservation in promotion for the SC/ST employees.

Senior advocates Rajeev Dhavan, Shekhar Naphade and advocate Kumar Parimal, arguing for the applicant, had contended that the Karnataka had so far followed vacancy based reservations, resulting in over representation of the SC/ST candidates in PWD and KTPCL.

They had given example of sactioned posts and working strength in the cadre of chief engineer, vis-e-vis representation of SC/ST employees who were promoted on the basis of reservation.

Out of total working strength of 32, the officers who belonged to Scheduled Caste category was 15, which came around 45.45 %. In case of Scheduled Tribe, the number of officer was three, which was of 9.36 %. Only 14 officers were of general category which came to 43.75%.

Senior advocates Indira Jaising and Dinesh Dwivedi, appearing for the reserved category employees and the Karnataka government counsel senior advocate Basava Prabhu Patil, had raised questions on maintainability of the matter. They said the court should not intervene at this stage after the final judgement.