President gives assent to SC/ST promotions bill

BENGALURU: In a major relief for government employees belonging to Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) across all 63 departments in Karnataka, President Ram Nath Kovind on Friday gave his assent to a bill which seeks to protect SC/ST government employees who face demotion.
After seeking clarifications from the Centre, a task which took more than six months, Rashtrapati Bhavan finally signed the Karnataka Extension of Consequential Seniority to Government Servants Promoted on the Basis of Reservation Bill of 2017. The bill was passed unanimously in the state assembly.

On February 9, 2017, the Supreme Court, in the B K Pavitra and others Vs Union of India case, struck down reservation in promotions since 1978 and asked the state government to reverse promotions of SC-ST employees and prepare a revised list.

To buy time, the Congress government set up a committee under K Ratna Prabha, then additional chief secretary (ACS) and currently chief secretary, to study the status of SC/ST government employees in the government and also filed a review petition to protect SC/ST government employees, considering it was an election year. While the review petition was dismissed by the apex court, the ACS committee found promotions are in line with efficiency, backwardness and inadequacy of the SC/ST backlogs in the state.

In November last year, the state government again proposed to circumvent the SC order by passing a bill in the legislature. The bill, which was sent to governor Vajubhai R Vala, was forwarded to the President for assent on December 16, 2017.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court, hearing a contempt petition, twice passed strictures and set a deadline of May 9, 2018 to implement its order. Accordingly, the government prepared a new seniority list across all departments, boards and corporations and demoted over 5,000 SC/ST government employees and promoted equal number of non-Dalit employees.

Despite being demoted, many Dalit employees refused to give up their postings, creating confusion and rifts among employees in various government departments.

Now with the President giving his assent to the bill protecting SC/ST promotions, the issue will once again cause heart burn as the government is expected to revoke all demotions of SC/ST employees and promotions of general category employees.

This though may not be the last of it. M Nagaraj, one of the first petitioners against the SC/ST promotion bill of 1978, said they will again challenge the bill in the Supreme Court. “Once the present dispensation makes it into a law, we will move the SC with a writ petition challenging the Act,” Nagaraj said.

He went on to add: “How can the government try to supersede the SC with a bill that denies general category employees promotions? Promotions to general category employees were made under directions of the SC, and this bill directly challenges the authority of the judiciary.”