JUDGMENT

ADARSH KUMAR GOEL, J.

These appeals involve the question of validity of 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, 2002 (the impugned Act). The Act inter alia provides for grant of consequential seniority to the Government servants belonging to Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes promoted under reservation policy. It also protects consequential seniority already accorded from 27th April, 1978 onwards.

2. The validity of the Act was challenged before this Court by way of Writ Petition (Civil) No.61 of 2002 titled M. Nagaraj and others v. Union of India and others. The issue referred to larger Bench in the writ petition along with connected matters was decided by this Court on 19th October, 2006 [(2006) 8 SCC 212]. While upholding the constitutional validity of the Constitution (seventy-seventh Amendment) Act, 1995; the Constitution (Eighty-first Amendment) Act, 2000; the Constitution (Eighty-Second Amendment) Act, 2000 and the Constitution (Eighty-f