20K govt employees hit: MP High Court scraps caste reservation in promotion

Special Correspondent

NewsBits.in

Bhopal: In a major blow to government employees, the MP High Court on Saturday scrapped caste-based reservation in promotion in government jobs.

A double bench led by chief justice Ajay Manikrao Khanwilkar cancelled the MP Civil Service (Promotion) Rule, 2002, holding it unconstitutional.

This would mean that all caste-based promotions of government employees done after year 2002 would be cancelled. This order is likely to affect about 20,000 employees/officers in state.

Sources said that the state government would study the order of HC and was likely to challenge it in Supreme Court. 

Under the Promotion Rules of 2002, Scheduled Tribe officers and employees were given 20% reservation while Scheduled-Caste employees got 16% reservation in promotion. The rules also provisioned that the posts under reservation could not be converted to general pool.

Hearing a petition, the HC observed that such reservation on basis of caste was fine for employment, but such provision for promotion demoralizes talented people. The rule also meant that a big pool of deserving employees got deprived of promotion.