The central legal point established is the constitutional duty to provide reservation for SCs and STs in promotions, as per Article 16(4-A), while maintaining the efficiency of administration under Article 335.

Common Judgment: Elipe Dharma Rao, J.

Since the issue involved in all these matters is common, they all are heard together and are being disposed of by this common judgment.

2. In all the matters, the appellants and the petitioners are the SC/ST Employees Union of various Banks. It is their case that the SC/ST officers in the Banks are entitled to get 22½% reservation i.e. 15% reservation for S.C. and 7½ reservation for ST in promotion as in any other Union of India organisation; that in spite of repeated directions and instructions from Government of India to Banks, they are deliberately ignoring the directions and thereby they are acting in a manner prejudicial to the rights of the SC/ST employees; that whenever vacancies arise, the respondent Banks used to declare in notification, without specifying any reservation to the SC/ST officers; that as per the Promotion Policy for Officers Agreement, which was entered into between the UCO Bank Management and All India UCO Bank Officers Federation at Calcutta on 28. 1992, guidelines/directives/administrative instructions were issued by the Government of India from time to time regarding relaxation, concession, reservation etc. for SC/ST, physically handicapped, ex-servicemen and other special categories of officers in the matter of scale to scale promotion within the officers grade will be deemed to be a part of the policy and given effect to accordingly and therefore, according to the petitioners, this is impliedly coming within the scope of the amendment to the Constitution whereby Article 16(4-A) was incorporated and thereafter, the petitioners sent a representation on 21. 1997 requesting the Banks to make reservation to SC/ST officers in the inter-scale promotion, but the respondents have not taken any step to reserve the vacancies for SC/ST officers and they have also not followed the relevant circulars issued by the Central Government and their own guidelines in the matter of promotion policy. The general grievance of the petitioners is that in spite of amendment to Constitution, incorporating Article 16(4-A), the respondents are not following the same. They have also submitted that there is inadequate representation in various categories of officers belonging to SC/ST and therefore, they are entitled to implement the promotion policy taking into consideration the inadequacy of representation among the top grade officers.

3. The respondents have stiffly opposed the claim of the petitioners contending that the provision under Article 16(4-A) of the Constitution does not confer any right on any citizen to demand such reservation, nor is there a corresponding constitutional duty imposed on the State to make such a reservation, since it is only an enabling provision which confers discretionary power on the State to make provision for reservation in matters of promotion to any class or classes of posts in the service in favour of SC/ST, if the State is of opinion that they are not adequately represented in the service. According to them, the promotion to the Officers Grade is on the basis of merit-cum-seniority to which reservation policy cannot be made applicable. It has been the case of the respondents that the reservation is applicable only in the first instance where it relates to promotion from clerical grade to the lowest rank in the Officers Grade and the present promotion is from the lowest to the next scale i.e. Middle Management Scale-II and therefore, the principle of reservation has no application and no direction has also been issued to the Banks to have reservation from Scale I to II. They also make reference to Office Memorandum No.38012/6/83-East (SCT) dated 11. 990 issued by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievance and Pensions (Department of Personnel and Training), Government of India, addressed to all the Ministries and Departments of Government of India including the Ministry of Finance (Banking Division) and held that there is no reservation with