| PETITIONERS NAME | Mukesh Kumar, |
| RESPONDENT NAMES | State Of Uttarakhand |
| BENCH | Justice L Nageswara Rao and Justice Hemant Gupta |
| CASE NUMBER | Civil Appeal 1226 Of 2020 |
| CITATION | AIR 2020 SC 992. |
In 2001 Uttarakhand was formed, since Uttarakhand did not have a reservation policy of its own the policy from other states were applied in this case Uttar Pradesh was applied with certain changes in it. In 2012 the Uttarakhand state government decided not to apply SC/ST reservation in public service positions. The reasoning behind this was that section 3(7) of the act was directly related to the topic of reservation which is related to promotion for public service positions. This was the reason that the Uttarakhand government decided not to give promotions with regard to reservation. In the year 2019 the high court decided to strike down the decision that took place in the year 2012 which they decided was contrary with the supreme court judgements of Indra Sawhney vs union of India and also Jarnail singh vs Lachhmi Narin GUPTA. With this the high court decided that the state has no obligation to give promotions with the criteria of reservation attached to it because of the fact that article 16(4) is an enabling provision it is not a mandatory provision and so only if the effect is placed then only then will the provision be invoked. This was challenged in the supreme court.
ISSUES RAISED IN THE CASE:
- Whether the following provision were ruled unconstitutional first being section 3(7) of the 1994 Act (reservation for SC/ST) second is the rule 8-A of the seniority Rules.
- If the state government has an obligation to give reservation with regard to promotion to members of SC/ST.
- If the state government must collect data before giving reservation to SC/ST and furthermore that data should be providing that there is inadequate ST/SC being represented in government services.
- If the declaration which the high court had given in the year 2012 is declared to be illegal is justified or not?
CONTENTIONS FROM BOTH THE SIDES:
Since this is an appeal case when the case was still in 2019 the petitioners’ arguments were of the view of being against the claim of reservation that has to be given to appointments or even the promotions of public posts. They contended the part where this is not a fundamental right for claiming reservation and furthermore the state does not have a duty to oblige with the same. The state has the decision if they want to oblige to the said law or not because of the fact that articles 16 and 16(4-A) are enabling provisions. Since the state of Uttarakhand, in September in 2012 case decided against the reservation on promotions in civil services.
The court came to this conclusion because of a previous precedent that took place in the year 1994. The counsel standing for the petitioners emphasised that once the government had decided to act on the prospect of not providing reservation, they do not have a necessity to collect quantifiable data referring to a precedent of Suresh Chand Gautham vs state of UP in which it was held that the state government does not need to oblige by the court on the decision of reservation and data collecting related to reservation. This was the petitioner’s argument.
The respondents contended that according to the articles 16(4) and 16(4-A) the state has the right to provide the reservation with regard to promotions, they further argued against the state and their refusal of collecting quantifiable data regarding the representation of ST and SC. The counsel state that the state does not have the right to “undermine” the right to equality for SC/ST. The central point was that the state must only go against providing reservation only after ensuring through the process of quantifiable data. They challenged decision that was mentioned in Suresh Chand Gautham case which they argued that it was not correct, and it needs reconsideration.
Furthermore, they even stressed on the committee constitution that had the task of collecting the reports required which shows the representation of SC and ST. The report provided by the committee showed that there is an inadequacy in representation, and this was also approved by the state cabinet. The counsel representing contended that the duty of the state government was to provide data on reservation which is gathered by the committee.
RATIONALE OF THE CASE
The rationale behind is that from the para we would have noticed that the data had been gien by the committee to the government but the government choose to ignore the data, now when it came to the supreme court it had analysed the legal aspect, where the court claimed that there is first no fundamental right with regard to a person to claim for promotion and within the aspect of reservation is not provided. Second the articles mention that is 16 and 16-A which are called as enabling provisions, which technically means that the article does not have to be mandatorily enforced unless and until the state deems fit it to be enforced.
Furthermore, the court stressed on the fact that the state does not have an obligation to provide reservation and it also does have a necessity to justify why if a data was rejected it can do it pleases. The supreme court held that the high court judgement with regard to data collection was not necessary, because the state had already possessed these data in advance. When the case was in the high court, the learned judge held that all the future vacancies for the post of assistant engineer will be filled up by STs and SCs.
This judgement was set aside by the supreme court. In the end the court had given the clarity that the state does not have any obligations to provide any reservation for promotion. The judgement strengthens the aspect that the reservation be done only on the basis of proper and adequate data. The state has the decision of whether the reservation must be provided or not depending on the data given to them.
DEFECTS OF LAW
- Inconsistency In High Court Judgment:
- The judgment provided by the high court seem to be very inconsistent because initially the court deemed that it did mention that there has to be quantifiable data, later it then changed its decision where it mentioned that it did not need quantifiable data to provide reservation this shows that the lack in consistency if the judgements are not clear then it would be considered to be very clear judgment and would suffice to more and more loopholes in the law.
- Efficiency Of Legal Process:
- In the case we would’ve noticed that the committee had already been given the data and taken the data but this data. Despite having the data, the state did not provide the reservations. The high court on having the data wasn’t aware of this and yet still insisted them to get the data this shows the efficiency of the legal process and there is very less efficiency that is provided in the legal process.
- Legal Precedents:
- In the case the case was sent to the supreme court and the supreme court came up with two precedents that were present 1st being the M. Nagaraj case of 2006 and the other being Jarnil singh case of 2018 which shows that the high court although the resource to acknowledge this precedent decided not to which lead to the appeal to supreme court if the precedents were acknowledged before then the case would have been dealt with easily in the high court, this can be said as a defect in legal reasoning.
- Striking Of Decisions:
- The high court took down the state’s decision without giving a detailed explanation as to why it was taken down. This shows that there has been a lack of legal analysis and lower level of rationale for the high court to not give an explanation.
INFERENCES FROM THE CASE:
There have been certain inferences that can be drawn from this case. Firstly, in legal perspective we could mention the part of quantifiable data in this it is understandable that the role that is being played by quantifiable data is very crucial for the case it is noticed that the whole case depended on the role that quantifiable data played although there are laws regarding this but the court had given its first priority to quantifiable data.
Second is the enabling provision understanding the concept of enabling provision is very important because of very little understanding of the enabling provision is the reason that this case had to go up to the supreme court. Third inference from this case is the clarity of the power the court holds and the power the state owns. It shows that there are places where the court cannot intervene, and this case shows where and how.
These were some of the main inferences that can be mentioned in the case. In conclusion it can be said that this case does not have a lot of legal flaws to show that the judgement had been given in a wrong manner but instead can be said that the judgement was given in a right way where all parties can be satisfied.
Name of the Author:
Akhilesh Raj.
College Name:
O.P. Jindal Global university.