The Government of India has always been concerned about the
welfare of downtrodden especially Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. As a
part of the affirmative action, reservation in
promotion had been available to the SCs and STs since 1955. However, some
decisions of the Supreme Court like in Indra Sawhney, Veer Pal Singh Chauhan
and S. Vinod Kumar cases had caused certain effects on the scheme of reservation in promotion for SCs and STs. To
overcome these effects, the Government had brought four Constitutional amendments, namely, 77th, 81st
, 82nd and 85th amendments.
The
latest of such judgments was in M. Nagaraj case in which the Supreme Court has laid
down some per-requisite conditions for providing reservation in promotion. These conditions are,
namely, assessing the quantum of representation of SCs, STs, there backwardness
and effect on efficiency.
In wake of the effects of the judgment of Supreme Court the
Government had introduced a Constitutional Amendment Bill
in Rajya Sabha during the last session so that the Scheduled Caste and
Scheduled Tribes may continue to get reservation in promotion as existing. There had
been demand to retain Article 335. Accordingly, the Bill was amended to delete
the words “ or in Article 335”, so that the condition of
the efficiency as mentioned in the Article 335 should continue to be a part of
the Constitution and should not be obliterated. Moreover, it ensures that the
effects of proviso to article 335 are retained which permits relaxed standards
for candidates belonging to the scheduled castes and the scheduled tribes in
case of promotion against reserved vacancies. The amended Bill has now been
passed by the Rajya Sabha.
The Government is making efforts to get the Bill passed by the
Lok Sabha also in this session itself.
Source:
PIB
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