SC rejects govt plea to do away with quantifiable data collection

|HT|

The Supreme Court on Friday turned down the Union government’s plea to do away with the requirement of collecting quantifiable data by the Centre and states to determine the representation of people belonging to Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) while implementing reservation in promotion. “State is obligated to collect quantifiable data as per the court’s judgment in M Nagaraj (2006) and Jarnail Singh (2018). Collection of data has to be for each category of posts for the entire service,” ruled a bench led by justice L Nageswara Rao.

The bench, which also comprised justice BR Gavai, said the Central government must determine a time period to revisit the reservation policy after ascertaining the percentage of posts occupied by SCs/STs.

“Review has to be conducted for inadequacy of representation for SC/STs. The period of review has to be a reasonable period and it is left to the government to decide this period,” said the court.

It added that assessment on the inadequacy of representation of the reserved categories in promotional posts should be left to the states. The bench declared as bad in law a 2019 judgment by the Supreme Court in BK Pavitra–II, which upheld the validity of the 2018 Reservation Act that introduced consequential seniority for SC/STs in Karnataka public employment.

The top court held that Pavitra-II was decided in breach of the constitution bench judgment in Nagaraj’s case in affirming the state’s policy on consequential seniority on the basis of cadre strength.

In 2006, a Constitution bench’s ruling in the M Nagaraj case made it incumbent upon the state to collect quantifiable data showing inadequacy of representation of a section of people in public employment in addition to maintaining overall administrative efficiency. The aspect of quantifiable data was endorsed by another Constitution bench by its 2018 ruling in the Jarnail Singh case which also mandated the exclusion of the “creamy layer” before providing for reservation in promotions. The top court was hearing a batch of petitions arising out of judgments from 11 high courts, which delivered rulings on various pertinent reservation policies in the last 10 years. Some of the states from where these judgments arose included Maharashtra, Bihar, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Tripura, Madhya Pradesh, and Punjab.

The Union government pressed for reservation in promotion proportionate to the population of SCs and STs as per a 1995 judgment by the top court in the RK Sabharwal case.

Attorney General KK Venugopal argued that it should be left to the Centre and states to decide on promotional avenues for SCs and STs.

He added there was a roster system in place in every cadre of the government departments to ascertain the posts required to be filled up by SCs/STs, and therefore the prerequisite of quantifiable data, as was laid down by two Constitution bench judgments of the apex court, should not remain. The roster system, the Centre submitted, was based on the proportionate population of SCs/STs, and had been working quite well in all government departments, and that the condition of collecting quantifiable data on the inadequacy of representation of SCs/STs may not be required at all.

About the aspect of overall administrative efficiency, Venugopal said that government employees are promoted only on the basis of their ACRs (annual confidential reports) and that there is no need to lay down any additional criteria.

When asked what should be a time period for the government to revisit the reservation policy after ascertaining the percentage of posts occupied by SCs/STs, Venugopal said that a periodic review should happen after every 10 years when a census is done. On the other hand, representing general category candidates, senior advocates Rajeev Dhavan, Meenakshi Arora, Gopal Sankaranarayan, and lawyer Kumar Parimal have contended that the reservation cannot be for an indefinite period and that it must stop as soon as the upper ceiling has been reached.

They emphasised that reservation in promotion should be cadre-based only after quantifiable data is collected and the creamy layer has been excluded. Additionally, the general category candidates have said that posts meant for SCs/STs cannot be kept vacant indefinitely and should be filled up by other candidates after three years, as laid down in the M Nagaraj judgment.

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