AGARTALA, March 5 (TIWN): In 2016, March 18 Supreme Court had ruled out that scheduled caste (SC) and scheduled tribe (ST) members can not claim quota as a right in government job promotions. On that time Supreme Court said, "The state is not bound to make reservation for SCs and STs in matter of promotions. Therefore, there is no duty". But disregarding the order of High Court and Supreme Court, promotion-spree had been continued across Tripura’s various departments till 2017 The promptness is so high that sometimes one promotion list is printing multiple times due to errors in the list. But Tripura Govt came to the line observing 2 things. One was Dipak Gupta's become Supreme Court Justice another is cancellation of 10,000 SC / STs at Karnataka. Much afraid Tripura Govt sought that the case should be sent back to HC for re-judgment but SC rejected the plea. Following the hearing of promotion case at Supreme Court on Feb 13 and the final verdict will be given on March 7.

Apart from that on 9th April 2015 the High Court passed the order of promotion rules, but it had remained without any action.  High Court had already enlisted the guideline how to proceed with promotion policy, although CPI-M govt didn’t like the policy at all and further went to Supreme Court.

Supreme Court recently canceled promotions of over 10,000 SC/ST Govt Employees in Karnataka and ordered demotions of the promotedcases across Karnataka. Earlier, in 2016 while briefing UP's SC / ST case Supreme Court has ruled that scheduled caste (SC) and scheduled tribe (ST) members can not claim quota as a right in government job promotions.

In the landmark verdict, the apex court on March 11 said that the states were not constitutionally obliged to give preferential treatment to any community in promotion.A bench comprising Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Prafulla C Pant said that the government was not bound by any constitutional provision to frame a policy for reservation in promotion and the court could not order making reservation in promotionmandatory. Referring to Articles 16(4), 16(4-A) and 16(4-B) of the Constitution mandating socially affirmative action to help disadvantaged groups, the court said that the states were not compelled to make reservation for SCs/STs in promotion.

It’s to be mentioned that Tripura High Court on November 2014 led by Chief Justice Dipak Gupta declared that the claims against Tripura govt. had brought were valid enough. In the judgment it was written that “The petitioners who belong to the general category claim that they have been deprived of the right to equality as the State has granted promotions to the reserved category candidates in total violation of the law laid down by the Apex Court in M. Nagaraj and others vs. Union of India and others”.  “The Act and rules framed by the State are unconstitutional and illegal as they violate the law laid down by the WP(C) 189 of 2011; WP(C) 109 of 2011; WP(C) 124 of 2012. Page 7 of 78 7 Apex Court. It is also submitted that the State without collecting or considering the relevant and requisite quantifiable data, cadre-wise as required by law has granted reservation in promotion to the reserved categories”.

Thus HC on its hearing also said that state govt had followed none of the codes and conducts of the promotion act had been maintained by govt. while promoting the officers. But challenging the HC although Tripura Govt had attempted to save the promoted SC / STs, but it can bring mass demotion to them and also massive embarrassment; and no one can guarantee that Datamohon himself will not be deomotioned as he belongs to ST criteria.