The Supreme Court will on Wednesday consider a petition, challenging validity of the Karnataka government’s fresh law assented last month by the President Ram Nath Kovind to safeguard the reservation in promotions for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SC/STs) in government jobs.
A bench presided over by Chief Justice Dipak Misra allowed a plea for urgent listing made by advocate Kumar Parimal on behalf of B K Pavithra and others. A bench of Justices Adarsh Kumar Goel and S Abdul Nazeer would take up the fresh writ petition, challenging the validity of new law, passed unanimously by the state Assembly.
According to the petitioners, the Karnataka Extension of Consequential Seniority to Government Servants Promoted on the Basis of Reservation (To the post in the civil services of the state) Act, 2017, was intended to surpass the apex court’s judgement on February 9, 2017. The Court had then had struck down reservation in promotions for the SC/ST employees.
A bench of Justices Goel and U U Lalit would consider separately a batch of petitions seeking contempt actions against the top officers of the state government for failing to give promotions due to general category employees and reverting the reserved category staff in accordance with the apex court’s judgement.