With Presidential assent for the Karnataka Extension of Consequential Seniority to Government Servants Promoted on the Basis of Reservation (To the Posts in the Civil Services of the State) Bill 2017, the State government is set to seek the Law Department’s opinion on the way forward.
This has become necessary because the government is in the midst of implementing the Supreme Court’s earlier direction on revising the seniority list in the bureaucracy before July 4 when the issue will come up for hearing again.
Meanwhile, the General Category Employees’ Association on Saturday said that they will approach the Supreme Court against the legislation. The Supreme Court, in February, 2017, stuck down the consequential seniority system followed by the State government to accelerate promotions for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes employees in the government after General Category employees sought judicial recourse.
The State legislature had passed the Bill to circumvent the court directive, which was then sent to the President.
While the Bill was passed by both houses of Legislature unanimously, General category employees were against it. “We will consult the Law Department as to what sort of affidavit has to be filed before the Supreme Court on July 4 and what stand the government should take on the issue,” a senior State government official said. “The process of implementing the seniority list is currently under way and departmental secretaries had been asked to give affidavits over the implementation before June 20. Now we will have to see how this moves forward,” the official said.
For many government employees, it could possibly be a “musical chairs” kind of a situation, said another senior government official.
“While many have been demoted and promoted following the Supreme Court direction, the government has to redraw the seniority list again under the new Act, following which there could be promotions and demotions again. If the Supreme Court strikes down the Act, it will be another change for the employees.”
While the government is likely to state its stand on the issue over the next week, the General category employees said that they will go back to the court against the legislation.
“This legislation has been brought to nullify the February 2017 Supreme Court order in the B.K. Pavithra case. We will seek judicial recourse and are confident that the judiciary will intervene in the matter,” said T.M. Shivaprakash, president of KPTCL General Category Employees’ Association.
He further claimed that the new Bill has the same clauses that seeks consequential seniority, which was in the earlier The Karnataka Determination of Seniority of the Government Servants Promoted on the Basis of Reservation (To the Posts in the Civil Services of the State) Act of 2002 that was subsequently stuck down by the Supreme Court in 2017.
