The Jharkhand High Court has given an important order in the matter related to giving reservation to SC-ST in promotion. The division bench of High Court Acting Chief Justice S Chandrashekhar and Justice Navneet Kumar has said in its order that the resolution of the state government issued on March 31, 2003 will no longer be effective, unless the government makes rules under the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court in the case of M Nagaraj and Janrail Singh.

In the case of M Nagaraj and Janrail Singh, the Supreme Court had accepted the 85th amendment of the Constitution as valid, but had said that all the state governments will have to make a law regarding this. The Supreme Court had clarified that if there is adequate participation of SC-ST in the promotion post of any cadre, then they can be given reservation in promotion.

After the completion of the hearing on March 6, the court had reserved its decision. This case was going on since 2003. The government had issued a resolution on 31 March 2003 and decided to give reservation to SC-ST in promotion. After this, many other petitions including that of Raghuvansh Prasad Singh were filed.

Advocate Manoj Tandon, on behalf of the applicants, told the court that it was wrong for the government to give reservation to SC-ST in promotional posts just by bringing a resolution in the year 2003.

In this matter, the Supreme Court had given its verdict in the case of M Nagaraj and Janrail Singh in the year 2006, but no law has been made by the government regarding this. This is a violation of the Supreme Court guidelines. Therefore, providing reservation to SC-ST in promotion is wrong.

After this, the court accepted the arguments of the applicants and declared the government's resolution issued in 2003 ineffective. The court has said that from now till then the government cannot give reservation to SC-ST in promotions, unless rules are made in the light of the Supreme Court order.