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Boost to SC/ST quota in promotions
Why in news?
- A Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court modified a 2006 judgment requiring the State to show quantifiable data to prove the “backwardness” of a Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe community in order to provide quota in promotion in public employment.
- The judgment by a five-judge Bench led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra gives a huge fillip for the government’s efforts to provide “accelerated promotion with consequential seniority” for Scheduled Castes/ Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) members in government services.
Supreme courts view
- SC held that this portion of the M. Nagaraj judgment of another five-judge Constitution Bench in 2006 was directly contrary to the nine-judge Bench verdict in the Indira Sawhney case.
- In the Indira Sawhney case, the Supreme Court had held that the “test or requirement of social and educational backwardness cannot be applied to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, who indubitably fall within the expression ‘backward class of citizens’.”
- Justice Nariman pointed out that the Presidential List for Scheduled Castes contains only those castes or groups or parts as “untouchables.”
- Similarly, the Presidential List of Scheduled Tribes only refers to those tribes in remote backward areas who are socially extremely backward.
- Thus, it is clear that when Nagaraj requires the States to collect quantifiable data on backwardness, insofar as Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are concerned, this would clearly be contrary to the Indira Sawhney and would have to be declared to be bad on this ground.
- But the unanimous judgment differed with the Centre’s argument that Nagaraj misread creamy layer concept to apply it to SC/ST.
Source
The Hindu