The Supreme Court on Wednesday decided to revisit its 2006 judgement fixing tough conditions for enabling quota for Scheduled Castes and Tribes in matters of promotion in Government jobs.
A five-judge bench will be shortly constituted by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) to examine whether there is need to reconsider the decision in M Nagaraj v Union of India case delivered by a five-judge bench on October 19, 2006.
The order was passed by a bench of CJI Dipak Misra, Justices AK Sikri and Ashok Bhushan on a batch of appeals filed by various SC/ST organizations in favour of reservation. These appeals were initially heard by a two-judge bench of Justices Kurian Joseph and R Banumathi which referred the cases to a five-judge Constitution Bench.
On Wednesday, appearing for the Centre, Attorney General KK Venugopal pointed out that the practice in the Supreme Court does not permit a two-judge bench to refer a case straight to a five-judge bench as it is first required to be placed before a three-judge bench.
However, he added that in the present case, the order was passed by the two-judge bench under Article 145(3), proviso to which allows even a two-judge bench to directly refer the case to Constitution Bench if it forms a view that the matter involves a substantial question of law requiring interpretation of Constitution.
The bench heard lawyers supporting the Nagaraj decision as well as opposing it and concluded that the five-judge bench will not reopen the Nagaraj decision to test its correctness.
However, it will determine whether a case for the review of the judgment is made out. Nagaraj case upheld constitutional validity of Articles 16(4A) and 16(4B) which told the governments that reservation in promotion to SC/ST will require quantifiable data to show backwardness of the specific caste/tribe, inadequacy of representation of such backward category, and preserving efficiency in administration.
The batch of petitions had its genesis from a Bombay High Court order quashing two State Government resolutions of 2004 providing reservation in promotion for SC/ST, denotified tribes, nomadic tribes, and special backward classes.