Reservation is one of the few establishment subjects where a single misplaced entry can be litigated years later, and where the rules are scattered across three decades of Office Memoranda and a line of Supreme Court judgments. Most people learn it by copying what the previous incumbent did. This series sets out what the position actually is, with the instruction or judgment cited at each step.

Practise before you apply it. The Reservation Roster Trainer lets you build a roster point by point and have it marked against the DoPT model roster, work through what happens when a post falls vacant, and test yourself on the errors that most often get rosters challenged.

How the series is organised

Parts 1 and 2 are the legal foundation — the constitutional clauses and the Mandal judgment. Parts 3 to 8 are the roster itself: why it changed in 1997, what percentages apply, how the points are derived, how the register is operated, what happens in small cadres, and how EWS was fitted in. Parts 9 to 12 are the areas where mistakes concentrate: horizontal reservation, own-merit candidates, backlog, and promotion.

Each part stands on its own, so you can go straight to the one you need. If you are learning the subject rather than looking something up, read them in order — several later parts assume the replacement principle from Part 3 and the register columns from Part 6.

Three things this series corrects