The jurisprudence of reservation relies on the symbiotic coexistence of constitutionally guaranteed equality of opportunity in public employment under Article 16 (1) of the Constitution of India and classifications thereunder various clauses of the same article, especially Article 16(4) and Article 16 (4 A), which are in the nature of facilitating provisions, vesting a discretion on the government to consider providing reservations for the socially and educationally backward sections of the society and to provide reservation in promotion to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, respectively.
It is a settled law, time and again reiterated by the Supreme Court, that there is no fundamental right to reservation or promotion under Article 16(4) or Article 16(4 A) of the Constitution, rather they are enabling provisions for providing reservation, if the circumstances so warrant ( Mukesh Kumar and Another vs State of Uttarakhand & Ors. 2020).
However, these pronouncements no way understate the constitutional directive under Article 46 that mandates that the state shall promote with special care the educational and economic interests of the weaker sections of the people and in particular Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. In fact, sensitivity of the welfare state towards the weaker sections over decades resulted in the gradual expansion of canopy of reservation in the form of increasing classifications under Article 16, a set of...
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