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

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

The DoPT’s clarification comes amid a recent complaint by the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) that the Centre’s de-reservation proposals were often incomplete and did not reveal alternative efforts to fill reserved vacancies. The NCSC has therefore decided to initiate an inquiry into such proposals to ensure effective implementation of the reservation policy.

As per the Government Recruitment Regulations issued by the DoPT, there is a general ban on the practice of canceling seat reservations, with very specific exceptions.

RTI query

In response to queries by The Hindu under the Right to Information Act, 2005, the DoPT cited Section 7(9) of the Act that collecting information on de-reservation proposals would “disproportionately divert the resources of public authorities”. It went on to say: “The requested information may be spread over many ministries/public authorities,” adding that the law does not mandate the relevant information officer to “create or interpret” the information.

The DoPT’s own rules on de-reservation of government seats, available on its website, state that any proposal for de-reservation of any seat by any department or department must be sent to the DoPT along with other relevant authorities. The rules further mandate that the “final decision” with respect to cancellation of reserved posts for direct recruitment rests with the minister in-charge of DoPT. The relevant ministry has the final decision on the cancellation of the reservation of vacancies.

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

Review planned

At a full commission meeting held in June this year, the NCSC noted that it had decided to conduct a full review of all the centre’s de-reservation proposals.

The current NCSC, headed by Gujarat BJP leader and writer Kishore Makwana, has been grappling with the issue of de-reservation proposals from the Center ever since it took charge. At four of the five full commission meetings held since 2024, the dereservation issue has been high on the NCSC agenda, according to meeting minutes.

Published – 9 Sep 2026 21:37 IST