There Can Be No Reservation Of A Solitary Post, Reiterates SC [Read Judgment]

There can be no reservation of a solitary post, reiterated the Supreme Court while upholding a Karnataka High court judgment.

R R Inamdar was promoted to the post of Lecturer in English which was a solitary post. Allowing the writ petition filed by another person senior to him, the Karnataka High Court held that the post of Lecturer in English was a solitary post and in view of the law laid down by the Supreme Court in State of Karnataka v K Govindappa, the post could not have been reserved.

While upholding this view, the bench comprising Justice Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud and Justice Ajay Rastogi observed that the Constitution Bench in Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research v Faculty Association had approved the view that there could be no reservation in respect of a single post.

In Govindappa, the Supreme Court had held thus: "In order to apply the rule of reservation within a cadre, there has to be plurality of posts. Since there is no scope of interchangeability of posts in the different disciplines, each single post in a particular discipline has to be treated as a single post for the purpose of reservation within the meaning of Article 16(4) of the Constitution. In the absence of duality of posts, if the rule of reservation is to be applied, it will offend the constitutional bar against 100% reservation as envisaged in Article 16(1) of the Constitution."

While reiterating these earlier views, the bench upheld the High Court view and said:

"The principle which has been enunciated by this Court is that there can be no reservation of a solitary post and that in order to apply the rule of reservation within a cadre, there must be a plurality of posts. Where there is no interchangeability of the posts in different disciplines, each single post in a particular discipline has to be treated as a single post for the purpose of reservation within the meaning of Article 16(4) of the Constitution. If this principle were not to be followed, reservation would be in breach of the ceiling governed by the decisions of this Court. " 

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