A recent note on reservation in promotion in State bureaucracy by Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai’s Principal Secretary N. Manjunath Prasad has ruffled feathers among the officials and employees of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. They have termed it an attempt to ‘create confusion’ in promotions despite a clear Supreme Court ruling on the issue.
The note sent by Mr. Prasad on April 13 to Chief Secretary P. Ravikumar is based on instructions from the Chief Minister to review the petition by the Federation of General Category, Backward Classes and Minorities Employees (Ahimsa), who have sought several changes to reservation in promotion in State bureaucracy after the Supreme Court order of January 28, 2022, in Jarnail Singh V/s Lachhmi Narain Gupta case.
Among others, Ahimsa has sought an end to the roster system currently followed to enable reservation in promotion once it reaches 15% and 3% for SCs and STs respectively and follow replacement theory where a general category vacancy created by superannuation is filled with general category employee and a similar method is followed for SC/STs.
