Supreme Court’s constitutional bench to hear SC/ST’s reservation in job promotion case

The Supreme Court’s constitutional bench will now hear the matter of reservation of SC/ST’s in promotion in jobs.

The bench headed by Justice Kurien Joseph has requested Chief Justice of India to constitute a constitutional bench.

The Madhya Pradesh, Tripura, Bihar government have challenged the High Court’s decision to abolish SC/ST’s reservation in promotions.

After taking the arguments of state governments and findings of M Nagraj case in 2006 into consideration, the decision to transfer the case to the constitutional bench was taken.

In the M Nagraj order, the five judges had said that before giving reservations in promotions, the government will have to gather data pertaining to whether the category getting reservations is backward and their representations are not enough in the jobs.

However, the Supreme Court had earlier already questioned about absence of creamy layer in SC/ST reservations.

The state governments had argued that idea of backwardness does not include in SC/ST. Only parliament can oust any category in SC/ST by forming a law and SC/ST’s are not given reservation for their backwardness but for social discriminations against them.