Madhya Pradesh High Court scraps promotion quota

The Madhya Pradesh high court on Saturday set aside the provision of reservations in promotion in the state government services.

The court said all the promotions granted as per 2002 Madhya Pradesh Public Service Rules would be invalid.

The ruling of the division bench of Chief Justice Ajay Khanwilkar and Justice Sanjay Yadav came on PILs filed by R.B. Rai, Santosh Kumar, S.C. Pandey and others.

The petitioners had challenged 2002 rules on the ground that they were not in conformity with the guidelines given by the Supreme Court in the M. Nagraj Vs Union (2006).

“The existing provision relating to reservation, backlog vacancies, carry forward of backlog vacancies... Contained in the Rules of 2002 runs contrary to the constitutional provisions contained in clause (4A) and (4B) of Article 16 and Article 335 and law predicated in M. Nagraj,” the high court said.

“Consequently, various promotions of SCs/STs category made on the basis of these Rules of 2002 are held to be non-est in the eyes of law and the persons be placed in the position as if the said Rules never existed and all actions taken in furtherance thereof must be reverted to status quo ante (the situation existing earlier),” the high court said.

“The implication of this judgment will be that all the promotions made under the Rules of 2002 are non est (invalid) in the eyes of law and will be reverted and the gradation lists of various departments will have to be redrawn as prior to the enactment of Rules of 2002,” said advocate Amol Shrivastava, who represented one of the petitioners.