Team News Riveting
New Delhi, January 28
The Supreme Court on Friday said it cannot lay down any yardstick for determining adequacy of representation of Scheduled Caste/ Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) communities in services for which reservation in promotion was being granted to such communities.
A Bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao, Sanjiv Khanna and BR Gavai held that the State government concerned was obliged to collect such data as laid down in the 2006 judgment of the Supreme Court in M Nagaraj versus Union of India.
“We have held we cannot lay down any yardstick to determine inadequacy of representation. State is obligated to collect quantifiable data regarding SC/ST representation. We have left it to state to assess yardstick to determine inadequacy of representation of SC/ST,” the court said. It also clarified that “cadre” should be considered as unit for collection for quantifiable data and not the entire service.
The Court also ruled that the judgment in Nagaraj will have prospective effect and the judgment in DK Pavitra 2 with regard to collection of quantifiable data is in contradiction to Nagaraj judgment.
The judgment came on a batch of petitions filed by different States that had moved the top court seeking clarifications on Nagaraj judgment. In Nagaraj judgment, which was rendered by a 5-judge Constitution Bench, the Supreme Court had upheld grant of reservation in promotions for SC/ST communities.
The top court while hearing the matter said that would not re-consider Nagaraj but agreed to issue clarifications on the conditions laid down by Nagaraj.
