No Reservation for SC/ST in Education, Jobs After Migrating to Another State, Rules SC

New Delhi: A member of the SC/ST community does not carry the same status upon migrating to another state and cannot thus get the benefit of quota there, the Supreme Court has ruled.

A Constitution Bench, headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi, concurred with the views taken by the apex court in the past.

“Unhesitatingly, it can be said that a person belonging to a Scheduled Caste in one state cannot be deemed to be a Scheduled Caste person in relation to any other state to which he migrates for the purpose of employment or education,” said the Bench.

It added that the benefits of reservation provided for by the Constitution would stand confined to the geographical territories of a state/Union Territory in respect of which the lists of SC/ST have been notified by the Presidential Orders.

"A person notified as a Scheduled Caste in State 'A' cannot claim the same status in another State on the basis that he is declared as a Scheduled Caste in State 'A'...," it maintained.

The Court added that if a member of SC/ST gets the benefit of that status throughout the territory of India, the expression "in relation to that State" under the Constitutional provisions would become nugatory.

The Bench noted that the mandate of Article 341 and 342 for notifying classes as SC and ST would get compromised if the special privileges or the rights granted to SCs and STs in a particular state are to be made available in all the states and if such benefits are to be carried from state ‘A’ to state ‘B’ on migration.

Such reservation, the court said, is to be provided on the basis of quantifiable data indicating the adequacy or inadequacy, as may be, of the representation of such classes in Government service.

“The data which is the basis of the satisfaction of the State being verifiable, is open to judicial scrutiny on the limited ground of relevance of the circumstances on which the satisfaction is moulded,” added the Bench.

For the purposed of subordinate services in Delhi, the Bench ruled that recruitment to all positions is on an All India basis and reservation provided for, is again, a pan¬ India reservation.