Promotion quota without data to be excessive, Supreme Court told

New Delhi: Those who are opposing reservations in promotion without data to justify it have, on Thursday, argued that automatic reservations would be excessive. They were objecting to a plea by the central government that it cannot be asked to embark on such a complicated exercise as relative affluence of SC/STs doesn’t take away the discrimination that they face.

The central government has sought to reopen the debate on this by urging the top court to revisit an earlier ruling in the Nagraj case which made it mandatory for the state to justify reservations in promotions by providing data on three counts –– backwardness, inadequacy of representation in the services and efficiency in administration.

Those opposing say that this was against the ruling. Their arguments were opened on Thursday by senior advocate Shanti Bhushan who said automatic reservations would be incongruous with the relative affluence of those who have enjoyed this privilege at the time of their entry-level appointment.


He also argued for the introduction of the creamy layer in reservations for SCs/STs in promotions on the grounds that the truly needy never get the benefit otherwise. Taking over from him, senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan said there ought to be no promotions in reservations at all.

He said the backwardness test laid down in the Constitution was in relation to a class and not an individual. The individual only gets reservation at the entry level if the class to which he belongs is both socially and educationally backward. The test then is caste plus backwardness, not caste alone. Dhavan argued that the government cannot use this test for an individual when he gets to a higher cadre. “Can the cadre of IAS or district judges be taken as a backward class?” he asked.

The test is not vis-à-vis an individual, he argued. He will continue his arguments next Wednesday.

The central government had strongly urged the court not to insist on data as it was too elaborate.

Relative affluence does not translate into ‘no discrimination’, advocate general KK Venugopal had argued. SC, ST quota has been frozen at the earlier levels of 12 and 17.5 percentage even though their population had gone up multiples times, he had argued. The concept of creamy layer was hence anathema, it said, urging the court to allow it to go ahead and promote them without any data. They still face discrimination and oppression, the AG had argued.