SC says no double quota, annuls order of Madras HC

SC says no double quota, annuls order of Madras HC
20 May 2008, 0240 hrs IST,Dhananjay Mahapatra & Ashish Sinha,TNN

NEW DELHI: UPSC is facing the prospect of having to rework Friday's results of the civil services exams after the Supreme Court on Monday stayed a Madras high court judgment which had virtually increased posts reserved for SCs, STs and OBCs in the top bureaucracy beyond the specified 50% limit.

A good number of candidates savouring the success now stand a high risk of being thrown out of the list when it is revised in the light of the stay ordered by a vacation bench comprising Justices C K Thakker and L S Panta on a petition filed by the Centre.

"The implication of the stay order will be known at the time of allocation of services," personnel secretary Satyananda Mishra told TOI.

At the heart of the issue was the HC order of March 20.

Though the HC order pertained to the batch which cleared civil services examinations (CSE) 2005, it has implications for the candidates who made the grade on Friday.

The HC order struck down Rule 16(2) designed to deal with the reserved category applicants, who claim quota benefits after having cleared the exams as "general category" candidates.

All such reserved category applicants, who are selected on "merit", are ranked among general category students. But as per Rule 16(2), they can claim reservation benefit to get a "better" service. For instance, somebody who makes it to the Indian Revenue Service can invoke his "reserved" status to get into IAS.

But the very same rule also laid down that the IRS post so vacated would come to the general pool. Madras HC, however, voided the rule, which meant that the IRS post would go to the reserved category - SC/ST/OBC - to which the successful candidate belonged.

In its petition, the Centre had said the implementation of the HC order would mean a breach of the 50% cap on quota. It was because of the Madras HC order being challenged in SC that UPSC has called the Friday results as "provisional".

The import of the bureaucratese started sinking in only on Monday after SC's order and the resultant risk of reversal of fortunes for many. This time, the exact impact of the stay order would be known once it becomes clear how many reserved category candidates actually made it to the general list, and how many of them finally opted for service allocation on basis of their reserved status.

Past records show that a good number of reserved candidates have been finding a place on the general list. Their number was 32 in 2005. It is, therefore, likely that names of some candidates may have to be deleted from this year's list. Chances are that the order may have far more significant fallout for this year's list.

Unlike past years, UPSC had, this time, recommended a list of candidates against all 734 vacancies in IAS, IPS, IFS, Group A and Group B services. Before the Madras HC ruled against Rule 16(2), UPSC used to announce a truncated merit list. It used to leave out the exact number of reserved candidates who had found a place on the general list so that there was no violation of the SC-mandated 50% cap on reservations.

These candidates then had the option to be considered in the "reserved" or "general" categories. Depending on the final situation during the allocation of services, UPSC used to issue a second list.