SC questions Centre on need for reservation in govt job promotions

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday questioned the rationale and logic in demanding reservation for SCs/STs in promotions in government jobs particularly when none of the states had so far collected any data to determine their backwardness and inadequacy of representation.

A five-judge Constitution Bench headed by the Chief Justice Dipak Misra made this observation when attorney-general K.K. Venugopal maintained that there was no need for identification backwardness of SC and ST, as they are perceived to be backward under the Constitution. The bench includes Justices Kurian Joseph, Rohinton Nari-man, Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Indu Malhotra.

When the CJI wanted to know whether the creamy layer within the SC and ST sections could be given quota in promotions, the AG said the question of whether the “creamy layer” within the SC, ST community should be extended the benefit of reservation in job promotions should be left to the wisdom of the President who alone has the power under Article 341 and 341 of the Constitution to determine them.

The A-G pointed out that the two articles empower the President to determine the castes, race, tribes etc for classification as SC and STs. While the A-G insisted that there should be “proportional representation” for SC and STs in jobs, Justice Joseph told the A-G that there should be quantifiable data besides a clear-cut benchmark to determine who among the SC/STs should be considered for promotion.”

The government must address the issue of whether the creamy layer should be excluded, Justice Kurian Joseph told the A-G.

The AG, however, said that SC and STs who have for centuries been subjected to discrimination are entitled to reservation in promotion as part of affirmative action under Article 16(4)(a). The CJI said the government must clarify as what is the concept of “adequacy” in representation since no quantifiable data has been placed before the court on the inadequacy of representation of SC and STs in promotion posts.

The CJI said, “We want to know precisely what it means by adequacy?” The AG said whether the communities have been adequately represented or not should be left to the discretion of the President and no one else. “Nobody else can do it,” the AG said referring to provisions of Article 341 and 342.

The CJI said that supposing there are 100 posts due for promotion, the government cannot say that it would reserve certain number of posts for SC/STs, unless it has the requisite data to justify inadequacy of representation of the two communities.

The AG, however, insisted that if there are 1,000 posts then at least 10 per cent of the posts should be reserved for the socially disadvantaged SC/STs. The CJI said, “Any such policy should have constitutional principles and must be “rational and reasonable.”