Don't dereserve vacant Scheduled Castes posts, rules Commission

NEW DELHI: No government post reserved for the Scheduled Castes (SCs) will be dereserved, the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) has ruled.

In a full commission meeting on Tuesday, NCSC unanimously decided that in cases where a government department is unable to find an eligible SC candidate to fill a reserved vacancy, it should advertise and appoint a person from the community on a contractual basis or get an official on deputation rather than seek dereservation. The decision comes against the backdrop of several requests from government departments, seeking permission to dereserve posts meant for SC candidates on the grounds that suitable candidates were not available.

A senior official said: "NCSC receives regular requests to dereserve a post on the grounds that an eligible candidate from the SC community is not available. We get requests to clear dereservation on the grounds that feeder posts do not have individuals from the SC community so the senior post should be dereserved. This adversely impacts the entire structure of a government department and disrupts the roster system developed by the department of personnel and training (DoPT) to follow mandatory reservations. We have decided that in case there are no eligible SC candidates and a vacancy arises, the department should advertise the vacancy and hire a consultant from the SC community on contractual basis or get an SC official on deputation from another service. Under no circumstances, should the post be dereserved."


The decision aims to ensure that SC vacancies are not filled by candidates from the general category merely because departments are unable to find suitable applicants. "Dereserving posts means that officials from the SC community do not get requisite representation in senior positions. We want to discourage that," said the official.

Under the existing reservation policy, 15% of vacancies in direct recruitment to central government jobs through open competition are earmarked for the SC community. The reservation is implemented through a post-based roster system under which specific posts are reserved for SC candidates. If a suitable candidate is unavailable, the vacancy is generally carried forward to subsequent recruitment cycles as a backlog vacancy. While dereservation of posts in direct recruitment is ordinarily prohibited, an exception is allowed for Group A posts that cannot be left vacant in public interest. In such cases, the concerned ministry must consult NCSC before the proposal is examined by a committee of secretaries and submitted to the minister in charge of DoPT for final approval. In promotions, ministries have greater flexibility to dereserve vacancies if eligible candidates are unavailable, subject to prescribed conditions and consultation with DoPT and NCSC.