New Delhi: The Centre speaking on promotions for SC/ST government employees told the Apex Court that they were automatically entitled for quota in promotions since they belonged to this category.
The Centre also urged the top court to reconsider the M Nagraj judgement where the court had made collection of data to determine their backwardness, TOI reported.
It also added that another community was being added in the list of SC’s after parliament passed a bill considering the community suffered “extreme social and economic backwardness arising out of traditional practice of untouchability”, a similar community was also tagged to STs.
“Once a community is included as SC or ST based on backwardness, the test of ‘backwardness’ is met. Backwardness is an interplay of both socio-economic attributes. While economic backwardness may be quantifiable, it is difficult to find a proxy to determine social backwardness,” the Centre said in a written note.
Back in the year 2006, the Apex Court while hearing a similar case had decided in Nagraj judgment that if the state intends to give reservation in promotion of SC/ST employees then it should first collect the data to prove their backwardness along with keeping note of not violating the Article 335 requirement .
The Centre arguing against testing the backwardness of SC/ST employees for the purpose of promotion,said, “SCs and STs are homogeneous groups and any action to re-group them based on economic and social advancement would not be appropriate. Further, to determine the socio and economic backwardness of SCs and STs, it would not be feasible to decide about the kind of data required, periodicity of collection of data, sources from where such data are to be collected and the method for authentication of such data.”
The Centre argued that their inclusion in this scheduled category itself is done after detailed process by the Government and Parliament which would further not require determination of their backwardness.
The Centre said Article 16(4A) provided reservation in promotion to SC/ST employees because they were already considered backward.
“There is a difference between the OBCs and the SCs/STs and, therefore, evidence of backwardness may be relevant for OBCs, but not for SCs and STs.”
“The policy of providing reservation in promotion to SCs and STs is to be implemented by each cadre controlling authority. It would be difficult for each cadre controlling authority to collect quantifiable data in each case as representation of SCs/STs in promotion posts keep changing,” it added.