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SC/ST quota in promotions: Supreme Court OKs Karnataka law
Why in news?
- The Supreme Court upheld the validity of a new Karnataka law, granting reservation in promotion to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (SC/ST) employees.
More in news
- Background:(1) Karnataka Govt. has Extended Consequential Seniority to Government Servants on the Basis of Reservation (to the Posts in the Civil Services of the State) Act 2018, which gives a one-time promotion to SC/ST employees, and is referred to as a catch-up clause.(2) In 2002 Karnataka government had enacted a similar law which was challenged for its validity under the Constitution.(3) In 2017, 2002 law on reservation in promotions had been quashed.(4) In 2006 M Nagaraj vs Union of India case, a Constitutional Bench had upheld the validity of the proposal though it said that quantifiable data had to be collected by the state to determine backwardness of the SC/STs.(5) The 2018 law protects consequential seniority from April 24, 1978.(6) The Karnataka legislature enacted the 2018 law after the Supreme Court invalidated the 2002 Act in B K Pavitra vs Union of India (B K Pavitra 1).
Views of SC
- Principle of meritocracy:(1) Providing of reservation for SCs and STs is not at odds with the principle of meritocracy.(2) Merit must not be limited to narrow and inflexible criteria such as one’s rank in a standardized exam.(3) It rather must flow from the actions a society seeks to reward, including the promotion of equality in society and diversity in public administration.
- Constitution is a transformative document:(1) Core of the present case is based on the constitutional content of equality.(2) Constitution was intended to be of bringing about social change in a caste-based feudal society witnessed by centuries of oppression of and discrimination against the marginalized.(3) Realization of the transformative potential of the Constitution has been founded on the evolution of equality, away from its formal underpinnings to its substantive potential.
- Views of SC on Article 335:(1) Article 335 recognizes that special measures need to be adopted for considering the claims of SCs and STs in order to bring them to a level-playing field.(2) Proviso is an aid of fostering the real and substantive right to equality to the SCs and STs.(3) The proviso is not a qualification to the substantive part of Article-335 but it embodies a substantive effort to realize substantive equality.(4) The proviso also emphasizes that the need to maintain the efficiency of administration cannot be construed as a fetter on adopting these special measures designed to uplift and protect the welfare of the SCs and STs.(5) Efficiency of administration in the affairs of the Union or of a State must be defined in an inclusive sense, where diverse segments of society find representation as a true aspiration of governance by and for the people.(6) If this benchmark of efficiency is grounded in exclusion, it will produce a pattern of governance which is skewed against the marginalized.
Source
Indian express