Judgment

CHINNAPPA REDDY, J.:- Special leave granted.

The Bihar State Harijan Kalyan Parishad whose writ petition against the Steel Authority of India Ltd., the Union of India and others, was dismissed in limine is the appellant before us in this appeal. We are afraid, notwithstanding the summary dismissal of the writ petition by the High Court, this appeal has to be allowed. The appellant is rightly aggrieved with letter No. 18(12)/81-SAIL II/Coord dated April 8,1982 from the Ministry of Steel and Mines addressed to the Chairman of the Steel Authority of India Limited and letter No. PER/IR/7949(pt) dated August 19, 1982 from the Steel Authority of India Limited to the Chief Personnel Manager, Bokaro Steel Plant, Bokaro. The effect of the two letters, Which we will extract in full later at an appropriate stage, is to deny to the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes the benefit of reservation in the matter of promotion to selection posts within Group A. The Bokaro Steel Plant, we may mention here, is a unit of the Steel Authority of India Limited which in turn is a publiclimited Company entirely owned, controlled and supervised by the Central Government. It is not disputed that the Steel Authority of India Limited is an instrumentality of the State and is an authority within the meaning of Art. 12 of the Constitution of India.

2. The Government of India, Ministry of Finance, Bureau of Public Enterprises, issued a directive to the Chief Executives of all Public Sector Enterprises on the subject of reservation for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in appointments in public enterprises. While 15% and 71/2 per cent of posts are generally to be reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes respectively, in the case of promotion of members of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes to posts promotion to which are by the selection method, a special procedure is devised by Para 9 of the directive. In the case of promotions within GroupA, it is laid down :

"In promotions by selection to posts within Group A which carry an ultimate salary of Rs. 2,250/- per month, or less, the scheduled caste/scheduled tribe officers, who are senior enough in the zone of consideration for promotion so as to be within the number of vacancies for which the select list has to be drawn up, would be included in that list provided they are riot considered unfit for promotion. Their position in the select list would, however, be the same as assigned to them by the Departmental Promotion Committee on the basis of their record of service. They would not be given, for this Purpose one grading higher than the grading otherwise assignable to them on the basis of their record of service."

A close perusal of the directive and in particular paragraph 9 which deals with "concessions to employees of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in promotions by selection method" makes it abundantly clear that the rule of reservation is also applicable to promotions by selection to posts within Group A which carry an ultimate salary of Rs. 2,250/- per month or less, but that the procedure is slightly different than in the case of other posts. While the rule of reservation applies to promotions by selection to posts within Group A carrying a salary of Rs. 2,250/- per month or less, it is prescribed that only those officers belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes will be considered for promotion, who are senior enough to be within the zone of consideration. Thereafter a Select List depending upon the number of vacancies would be drawn up in which would also be included those officers belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes who are not considered unfit for promotion. Their position in the Select List would be that assigned to them by the Departmental Promotion Committee on the basis of the record of service. In other words, their inclusion in the Select List would not give them seniority, merely by virtue of their belonging to the scheduled Cast