New Delhi: The Supreme Court (SC) on Friday refused to lay down a yardstick for granting reservation in promotion to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in government jobs and left the decision to the states.
A three-judge bench headed by Justice Nageswara Rao said states are obligated to collect data on the inadequacy of representation of SCs/STs.
The Court also said that 'cadre' should be considered as a unit for collection for quantifiable data and not the entire service.
A bench of justices L Nageswara Rao, Sanjiv Khanna, and BR Gavai refused to dilute the criteria laid down in the constitution bench decision of M Nagaraj (2006) and Jarnail Singh (2018) for granting quota benefits in promotion of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes employees.
The Nagaraj judgment had laid down conditions like a collection of quantifiable data, adequacy of representation, and overall impact on the efficiency of administration, for granting reservations.
Earlier, Attorney General K K Venugopal, appearing for the Centre, had submitted that SC/STs have been sidelined from the mainstream for years.
The government had asked the court to lay down a definite and decisive ground for the Union of India and the states to implement reservation in promotions to SCs and STs in government jobs.
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