As more and more communities and castes demand a share of reservation benefits in jobs and education, the Supreme Court has put an essential curb on reservation benefits enjoyed by SC/ST employees. In a recent judgement, it held that a reserved category candidate who gets “accelerated” promotion based on his SC/ST status cannot claim consequential seniority with general category candidates who are more qualified and senior to him in years of experience.
The judgement came on an appeal by general category Assistant Divisional Engineers employed with Tamil Nadu Highway Engineering Service. The batch of officers were upset by a Tamil Nadu High Court order granting consequential seniority to a batch of reserved category Junior Engineers, who by virtue of their SC/ST status, were promoted to the post of Assistant Divisional Engineers within a short span of service.
The HC relied on Article 16(4A) which gave sweeping power to States to provide reservation in promotion and grant consequential promotion to such candidates. The petitioners on the other hand argued that unless there is a specific rule providing for consequential seniority under the Service Rules, such benefit will deny the more experienced general category officers a fair opportunity.
Dealing with the appeal challenging the HC order, the Bench of Justices TS Thakur and R Banumathi set aside the direction, ordered revision of seniority list by denying reserved category candidates consequential seniority, and scrapped any further promotions granted to Assistant Divisional Engineers who were once promoted from the rank of Junior Engineers from the reserved category.
The Bench was of the view that unless the State Government specifically provides for consequential seniority, the same rule cannot be derived from applying Article 16(4A) of the Constitution. Even for the State to provide consequential seniority to SC/ST category, there must be data to show “inadequate representation” of SC candidates in various category of the TN Highway Engineering Service, to which both petitioners and respondents belonged.
“No material is placed on record that the State of TN has ever undertaken such exercise,” the Bench said.
On comparing the seniority rank of the petitioners vis-à-vis their reserved category promotes, the Bench saw that the former were far below in seniority despite being qualified and senior to them in profession. It said, “Determination of seniority must be based on some principles which are just and fair…. accelerated promotion given to the respondents (SC/ST officers) following rule of reservation will not give them consequential accelerated seniority.”