Government employees belonging to the general category have approached the Supreme Court seeking review of the court’s decision to uphold 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, 2018 that provides reservation in promotion for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes employees.
The KPTCL General Category Association, along with others, has filed a review petition before the Supreme Court Bench comprising U.U. Lalith and D.Y. Chandrachud, which had upheld the Act in May 2019.
Following the Supreme Court’s judgment in May, the State government has instructed departments to cancel the earlier demotion orders of about 3,800 SC/ST employees, who had been demoted after another Supreme Court order in 2017. Currently, most departments have cancelled the demotions of SC/ST employees while over 4,000 general category employees, who were promoted in 2018, face demotion.
Sources said that while the review petition is normally heard in the judges’ chambers, the petition has sought the case to be heard in open court. “Hearing in open court will allow us to present out arguments before the judges,” sources said.
Sources said that the review petition has pointed out certain lacunae in the two-judge Bench judgement earlier. “We have contended that the earlier judgments of the Supreme Court’s Constitution Bench in respect to R.K. Sabharwal, Jarnail Singh, Indira Sawhney and M. Nagaraj cases have not been considered by the two-judge Bench before upholding the Act,” sources said.