Data on de-reservation proposals not readily available, says DoPT amidst tussle with Scheduled Castes panel

The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has said that it does not have “readily available” data on the number of de-reservation proposals it had received from various Ministries and departments of the Union government over the last six years. De-reservation is the practice of filling a reserved position with a general category candidate.

The DoPT clarification comes amid a recent complaint from the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) that the Centre’s de-reservation proposals were often incomplete and didn’t reveal alternative efforts made to fill reserved vacancies. The NCSC had, therefore, decided to launch a probe into such proposals to ensure effective implementation of the reservation policy.

According to regulations for government recruitment issued by the DoPT, there is a general ban on the practice of de-reserving posts, with very specific exceptions.

RTI query

In response to queries from The Hindu under the Right to Information Act of 2005, the DoPT cited Section 7(9) of the law to say that gathering the information on de-reservation proposals would “disproportionately divert the resources of the public authority”. It went on to say, “Information required may be scattered with many departments/Ministries/public authorities,” adding that the law does not mandate the concerned information officer to “create or interpret” information.

The DoPT’s own rules on de-reservation of government posts, available on its website, stipulate that any proposal to de-reserve any post by any Ministry or department is required to be sent to the DoPT along with other relevant authorities. The rules further mandate that the “final decision” with respect to de-reserving direct recruitment posts lies with the Minister in charge of the DoPT. As regards de-reservation of promotion vacancies, the respective Ministry is the final decision-making authority.

The NCSC and the Centre have been clashing over the issue of de-reserving government posts for the last two years, with the commission saying that de-reservation proposals are often incomplete and do not reveal the attempts made to fill the reserved posts. To overcome the “recurring issue”, the NCSC has decided to examine the proposals and make recommendations to ensure proper implementation of the reservation policy.

Review planned

In a Full Commission meeting held this June, the NCSC noted that it had decided to undertake a full review of all de-reservation proposals from the Centre.

The current NCSC, headed by Gujarat BJP leader and writer Kishore Makwana, has been grappling with the issue of de-reservation proposals from the Centre ever since it took charge. In four out of the five Full Commission meetings held since 2024, the issue of de-reservation had featured high on the NCSC agenda, according to the minutes of the meeting.