All Women, Whether Or Not Belonging To Reserved Category, Entitled To Compete For Posts Earmarked For Women Under General Category:Gujarat HC [Read Judgment]

"All women, irrespective of whether they belong, or do not belong, to the reserved category are entitled to compete for posts earmarked in favour of women under the General Category", the Gujarat High Court has ruled. Chief Justice Vikram Nath and Justice J. B. Pardiwala observed that there is no reservation for posts in the General Category, and horizontal reservation in favour of women in the General Category is available to be filled up from amongst all women irrespective of their caste status. "The posts, reserved in favour of General Category (Women), are available for all women from the State of Gujarat, and that would include women belonging to the reserved categories such as OBCs, SCs and STs, and women who do not", held the division bench. The bench further reflected that holding otherwise, would result in surreptitious introduction of reservation in favour of those who do not belong to the socially and educationally backward classes, and a disguised attempt at communal reservation has been frowned upon by the Supreme Court in Dorairajan's case. The Court required that the State as well as the Public Service Commission, for all times to come, bear in mind that the effect of horizontal reservation, being provided under each category, is that it is only women, who belong to the Other Backward Classes, who can compete for the posts reserved for Other Backward Classes (Women) and not women who belong to the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes and the unreserved category. Likewise, it is only women belonging to the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes who can compete for the posts horizontally reserved in favour of Scheduled Castes (Women) and Scheduled Tribes (Women). A woman, not belonging to the reserved category (OBC, SC and ST), is not entitled to compete for posts reserved in favour of Other Backward Classes (Women), Scheduled Castes (Women) and Scheduled Tribes (Women). "The converse, however, is not true", said the bench FACTS The Gujarat Public Service Commission came up with a public advertisement dated 15th July, 2017 for the recruitment to the 115 posts of the Police Inspector (Unarmed). The bench noted that the State Government has framed rules called the Gujarat Civil Services (Reservation of Posts for Women) Rules, 1997 providing for reservation for women in the public services and posts in connection with the affairs of the State. Further, the State Government, by the Gujarat Civil Services (Reservation of Posts for Women) (Amendment) Rules, 2012, amended the Rules, 1997 by inserting Rule 3 therein. The newly added Rule 3 provides for the method of the application of the reservation for women- that if women belonging to any of the reserved categories, on their own merit, get selected to the open competition vacancies, they would be counted or considered as the open competition candidates (General Candidates) even for the purpose of Horizontal (Special Reservation). The bench also noted that the General Administration Department (GAD) of the Government of Gujarat issued the Government Resolution dated 01.08.2018, clarifying certain issues/doubts that arose in the matter of application of Special (Horizontal) Reservation for women in public service and posts in connection with the affairs of the State. Clause 12 of the GR provides that if a woman candidate belonging to SC/ST/SEBC gets selected in general quota, in roster numbers, she shall be considered as a General candidate, and in the register for women's reservation, she should be considered as a woman candidate of the relevant category. Clause 13 stipulated that the woman selected on merit shall be treated as a woman of the relevant category (SC/ST/SEBC) but the post of the relevant category (SC/ST/SEBC) shall be treated as vacant. The above referred two clauses Nos.12 and 13 were the root cause for this litigation, in connection with the GPSC publishing its final result of the competitive examination for the posts of Police Inspector (Unarmed), Class-II on 18.09.2018. The dispute arose during the recruitment for the post of police inspector, where the inclusion of 6 Socially and Economically Backward Class female candidates and 1 SC category female candidate was made in the general category. This was challenged and a single-judge bench, substantially relying on Clauses 12 and 13 quashed and set aside the select list dated 18.09.2018 with a further direction to the Commission to prepare the select list in consonance with the Rules, 2012 and the Government Resolution dated 01.08.2018. The division bench was hearing the appeal against this 29.11.2019 judgment. OBSERVATIONS OF THE BENCH The bench reiterated that Social reservations in favour of SC, ST and OBC under Art. 16(4) are 'vertical reservations.' Special reservations in favour of physically handicapped, women etc., under Art. 16(1) or 15(3) are 'horizontal reservations.' Where a vertical reservation is made in favour of a backward class under...

All Women, Whether Or Not Belonging To Reserved Category, Entitled To Compete For Posts Earmarked For Women Under General Category:Gujarat HC [Read Judgment]

Mehal Jain

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