Indian Tribal News Service
New Delhi
The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has sent a memorandum to all Central government departments and ministries laying down the procedure to be followed for implementing the reservations in promotions to SC/ST employees.
It cited that following the Supreme Court judgement on January 28 this year, the Attorney General has opined that three conditions are to be met while implementing the policy of reservation in promotions, namely:
“(i) Collection of quantifiable data regarding inadequacy of representation of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes; (ii) Application of this data to each cadre separately; and (iii) If a roster exists, the unit for operation of the roster would be the cadre or which the quantifiable data would have to be collected and applied in regard to the filling up of the vacancies in the roster.”
At the same time though, the DoPT order also stated that to ensure maintenance of efficiency of administration, the promotion committee shall carefully assess the suitability of the officers being considered for promotion.
The Centre’s move will benefit the Central Secretariat Service officers and below and their promotions can be effected after a gap of six years.
As per the CSS Forum, there are 6,210 officers in the rank of section officer, under secretary, deputy secretary, director and joint secretaries in central government offices. Of them, as many as 1,839 positions are vacant as officials have not been promoted
The Supreme Court had reiterated that the Centre and states cannot escape from providing quantifiable data to justify reservation in promotion to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in Government jobs.
This data, according to the Court, has to show inadequate representation of SC/STs in public employment taking each cadre as a unit that should not be for all times but be open for review after a reasonable period.
