Caste and Social Practices — Key Changes

Entry	Year	Description	Impact
77	1995	Inserted Article 16(4A), enabling the State to provide reservation in promotion for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes which, in its opinion, are not adequately represented in its services.	Created a distinct constitutional basis for promotion reservation for SC/ST employees. It should be distinguished from initial recruitment under Article 16(4), and from the later consequential-seniority change. The enabling provision does not itself confer an automatic promotion on an individual; implementation remains within the applicable constitutional framework.
81	2000	Inserted Article 16(4B) concerning unfilled vacancies reserved under Article 16(4) or 16(4A), allowing them to be treated as a separate class for filling in succeeding years.	For the specified fifty-per-cent calculation, these carried-forward vacancies are not combined with the vacancies of the year in which they are filled. This changes the treatment of a reserved-vacancy backlog; it is not a general removal of constitutional limits for every reservation category or a provision about promotion seniority.
85	2001	Changed Article 16(4A) to include consequential seniority in promotion reservation. The Act is titled 2001, received assent on 4 January 2002 and was deemed effective from 17 June 1995.	Enabled the promotion-reservation framework to include the resulting seniority benefit for SC/ST employees, rather than addressing promotion alone. Its title year, assent date and retrospective commencement date refer to different legal events. It does not substitute for the applicable implementation requirements or determine the result of a particular service dispute.