The Supreme Court in its judgement dated 16.11.1992 in the case of Indra Sawhney and Others vs. Union of Indai and others., observed that reservation cannot extent to promotions. To overcome the effect of this judgement that has adversely affected the SC/ST employees, the Government in 1995 brought the constitutional amendment (77th amendment) by inserting a new clause (4A) in the said article 16 (4) to provide for reservation in promotion for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.
At the time of passing that amendment, Hon'ble Members of Parliament in Lok Sabha in their discussion on 2nd June 1995 cutting across party lines demanded that the Government must include OBCs also and bring a comprehensive bill covering SC, ST and OBCs. Hon'ble Members include Sharad Yadav, Nitish Kumar, Dr.Mumtaz Ansari, Krishnan Dutt Sultanpuri, Ratilal Varma, P.G.Narayanan, Syed Shahabuddin, G.M.C. Balayogi, Cheedi Paswan, Suraj Mandal, Anand Charan Das, Kamla Mishra Madhukar, Srikanta Jena, Bandaru Dattatreya, Vishwanath Shastri. Then Union Welfare Minister Sri Sitaram Kesri assured in the House that "We shall consult leaders of all political parties by convening a meeting and thereafter we shall bring a Bill definitely in this regard".
Based on the assurance given in the House, the amendment 16 (4A) was passed benefitting SC/ST employees. Article 16 (4A) states "Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from making any provision for reservation in matters of promotion to any class or classes of posts in the services under the State in favour of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes which, in the option of the State, are not adequately represented in the services under the State."
The above amendment was challenged in the Supreme Court and while upholding the constitutional validity of the Constitution (Seventy-seventh amendment) Act, 1995 i.e. 16 (4A), Supreme Court in its judgement dated 19.10.2006 (M.Nagaraj and others vs. Union of India vs. Others) stated that "the concerned State will have to show in each case, the existence of the compelling reasons, namely, backwardness, inadequacy of representation and overall administrative efficiency before making provision for reservation".
Again in the case of U.P. Power Corporation Ltd., Vs. Rajeshkumar & Ors., (Civil Appeal 2608 of 2011) dated 27th April 2012, Hon'ble Judges Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Misra of Supreme Court in their judgement dated 27.04.2012 upheld the High court order of Uttar Pradesh and stated that the view of the High Court is based on the decision in M.Nagraj case as no exercise was undertaken in terms of Article 16 (4-A) to acquire quantifiable data regarding the inadequacy of representation of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities in public services.
Now that the Government has informed the House that an all party meeting will convened on 21st August 2012 to discuss the effects of Supreme Court judgement dated 27.04.2012 and to arrive at a consensus and to formulate suitable legislation to protect the interest of SC/STs.
In this regard, it is to be noted that the representation of OBCs in the services of the government and public sector undertakings is not only inadequate but very very minimum. As per the statistics given by the DoPT in their annual reports, the OBCs represent roughly represent 5% in Class I services. The following data will testify the statement.