Special Correspondent
NewsBits.in
Bhopal: A major relief came for over 30,000 Madhya Pradesh government employees as the Supreme Court on Thursday ordered status quo on caste-based reservation in promotions.
The SC’s status quo order came while hearing a petition of the state government that challenged the MP High Court’s recent decision to quash reservation in promotions for scheduled caste and scheduled tribe employees in state.
This order of the apex court would mean that the promotions of over 30,000 officers and employees since year 2002 would not be reverted, as ordered by the MP High Court on April 30, additional advocate general Purushaindra Kaurav told media persons.
The SC has scheduled the next hearing in the case in third week of September.
On April 30, a double bench of MP HC led by chief justice Ajay Manikrao Khanwilkar had cancelled the MP Civil Service (Promotion) Rule, 2002, holding it unconstitutional. This meant all promotions done under the rule had to be cancelled.
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.
