Upping the pressure on the State government to implement the legislation that protects reservation in promotion, following the Supreme Court’s verdict on Friday, employees belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes on Monday submitted a memorandum to Chief Secretary T.M. Vijay Bhaskar to cancel all demotions immediately.
Meanwhile, officials are examining if it can be implemented before the model code of conduct ends on May 27.
The memorandum was submitted by the State Government SC/ST Employees’ Coordination Committee, which also demanded that nearly 3,800 SC/ST employees, who had been demoted following an earlier Supreme Court verdict, be posted back to the cadre besides the posts and places that they had worked before demotion with retrospective effect.
The demand by the SC/ST employees comes in the light of the Supreme Court upholding the Karnataka Extension of Consequential Seniority to Government Servants Promoted on the Basis of Reservation (To the Posts in the Civil Services of the State) Act, 2017.
Urging the State government to implement the Act in letter and spirit, the committee said that efforts should be made to ensure that there is no misinterpretation of the law or the court order. The committee also sough publication of a fresh seniority list in line with the Act within 15 days.
“Those officials who have been responsible for misinterpretation of the earlier order should be identified and punished,” the committee said, urging the government to book cases against officials under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, if they fail to implement the Act properly.
Besides, the committee has urged the government to book cases under IPC 302 (punishment for murder) against officials who misinterpreted the Supreme Court order in respect to the B.K. Pavithra case, said D. Chandrashekaraiah, the committee’s legal adviser, who met the Chief Secretary on Monday.
GO shortly
Meanwhile, a senior official in the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms said that the State government is getting ready to issue a Government Order (GO). When asked if the GO would be issued before the model code of conduct ends, the official said the government was in discussion on whether it could be done before May 27 or wait till it ends.
Another senior official in the State bureaucracy said the issue is being examined. “There is a Supreme Court order and also model code of conduct. The government is examining the issue and it will be implemented soon.”