Government seeks to end promotion quota in PSU banks, says Kapil Sibal

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Friday alleged that the NDA regime “is seeking to do away with” the reservation for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in promotions in higher grade level officers in public sector unit banks.

At a news confernce at the AICC, senior party leader Kapil Sibal said, “the Modi government, through the attorney-general, has filed a review petition — just as five PSUs banks — in the Supreme Court challenging the apex court order of January 9, 2015, upholding the Madras high court order of December 9, 2009, which ruled in favour of reservation for SCs and STs in promotion with respect to higher level grade officers.”

Maintaining that the Centre’s and PSU banks' review petitions will come up for hearing next week, Sibal said the Congress want the Centre to withdraw its stand.

Sibal said the Centre's review petition comes despite the fact that the BJP had supported the Constitution (117th ) Amendment bill introduced by the UPA regime in 2012 for SC/ST reservation in promotions.

Recalling that Prime Minister Narendra Modi used to say during his Lok Sabha election campaign that “the coming decade will be the decade of the Dalits,” Sibal linked the issue of the review petition to the Bihar elections by saying the Centre’s move only exposed the BJP’s “manuvadi outlook” and demanded that the saffron party’s Dalit allies Ram Vilas Paswan and Jitan Manjhi make their stand clear on the issue.