There are two entirely different things called reservation in a Central Government establishment, and they behave differently. The SC, ST, OBC and EWS quotas are vertical: each is a separate compartment with its own roster points. The quotas for persons with benchmark disabilities and for ex-servicemen are horizontal: they cut across those compartments. Treating a horizontal appointment as though it added to a vertical total is a common and consequential mistake.

The distinction

Vertical, or social, reservation — SC, ST and OBC under Article 16(4), and EWS under Article 16(6). Each is a distinct compartment. The roster points belong to these categories.

Horizontal, or special, reservation — persons with benchmark disabilities, ex-servicemen, and where a rule provides for it, women. These cut across the vertical categories. It is also called interlocking reservation, which is the more descriptive name.

The essential rule follows from that geometry: a horizontally reserved appointee occupies a post in one of the vertical compartments. He or she is counted once against the vertical category and once against the horizontal quota. Neither total increases.

Persons with benchmark disabilities

Section 34 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, provides four per cent of the total direct recruitment vacancies in Groups A, B and C, given effect by Office Memorandum No. 36035/02/2017-Estt.(Res.) dated 15 January 2018. Reservation in promotion at four per cent followed by Office Memorandum of 17 May 2022.

The four per cent is divided one per cent each among blindness and low vision; deaf and hard of hearing; locomotor disability including cerebral palsy, leprosy cured, dwarfism, acid attack victims and muscular dystrophy; and one per cent for autism, intellectual disability, specific learning disability and mental illness together with multiple disabilities including deaf-blindness.

It is maintained on a separate 100-point vacancy-based roster in four blocks of twenty-five, with points 1, 26, 51 and 76 earmarked, one for each disability group. Where a point cannot be filled the reservation shifts to a suitable vacancy within that block; interchange between disability categories is permitted, and carry-forward runs to two subsequent recruitment years.

The instruction is explicit on placement: persons selected against the quota for persons with benchmark disabilities have to be placed in the appropriate category — SC, ST, OBC or unreserved — on the vertical roster.

Ex-servicemen

Reservation for ex-servicemen runs under the Ex-servicemen (Re-employment in Central Civil Services and Posts) Rules, 1979, as amended: ten per cent in Group C, twenty per cent in the erstwhile Group D, and ten per cent up to the rank of Assistant Commandant in the paramilitary forces.

It too is maintained on a separate vacancy-based 100-point roster, in ten blocks of ten with points 1, 11, 21 and so on earmarked, and it operates as a running account from year to year.

The structural asymmetry worth noticing

The vertical rosters for SC, ST, OBC and EWS are post-based and operate on the replacement principle. The horizontal rosters for persons with benchmark disabilities and for ex-servicemen are vacancy-based and operate as a running account — the very system that was abolished for the vertical categories in 1997.

They are different registers with different logics, maintained side by side. This surprises people who assume the 1997 change applied to everything, and it is worth being clear about when explaining a register to someone new.

A worked example

Take a cadre of 100 direct-recruitment posts filled by open competition. The vertical roster gives SC 15, ST 7, OBC 27, EWS 10 and unreserved 41. The ex-servicemen horizontal quota in Group C gives 10 posts, drawn from the separate ex-servicemen roster at points 1, 11, 21 and so on.

An ex-servicemen point falls due and the selected candidate is an SC candidate who did not qualify on general merit. Then:

  1. He occupies one of the 15 SC posts on the vertical roster — the next available SC point.
  2. He is simultaneously ticked off against one of the 10 ex-servicemen posts on the horizontal roster.
  3. The SC total stays at 15. The ex-servicemen total stays at 10. Nothing is added to either.

If instead the selected ex-serviceman is a General candidate, he is adjusted against an unreserved point. The horizontal quota constrains who fills a vertical slot; it never creates a new one.

Rajesh Kumar Daria: the asymmetry in how the two are filled

In Rajesh Kumar Daria v. Rajasthan Public Service Commission, (2007) 8 SCC 785, the Court set out how a horizontal quota is worked, and the method differs from vertical reservation in a way that matters.

Under vertical reservation, a reserved-category candidate who makes the general cut-off is counted against the unreserved category, not against his own quota. Under horizontal reservation the opposite applies: a woman who makes the cut-off on merit does count towards the women's quota within her vertical compartment.

The Court's formulation for a women's quota within the Scheduled Caste compartment: fill the SC quota in order of merit first, then find out how many of those selected belong to the special reservation group of Scheduled Caste women; if the number falls short, displace the lowest-ranked SC men by the highest-ranked SC women until the sub-quota is met.

Saurav Yadav: the open category is open to all

In Saurav Yadav v. State of Uttar Pradesh, (2021) 4 SCC 542, decided on 18 December 2020, an OBC woman in a police constable recruitment scored 276.59 when the General-Female cut-off was 274.89, and was refused a General-Female place on the theory that a reserved-category candidate cannot occupy a general horizontal slot.

The Court held otherwise. The principle that candidates belonging to any of the vertical reservation categories are entitled to be selected in 'Open or General Category' is well settled, and it applies at every stage, including within horizontal sub-quotas. Any selection that results in candidates being selected against the open category with less merit than others available is opposed to the principle of equality.

The operational rule: she takes the General-Female place, and the OBC-Female sub-quota remains available to the next OBC woman in order of merit. Doing it the other way round systematically under-counts the reserved categories — which is exactly the error the Court corrected.

Merit migration: a live line of cases

The related question of when a reserved-category candidate migrates to an unreserved seat has produced a run of recent decisions, and the answers are not uniform.

A candidate who meets the open cut-off without any relaxation is an own-merit candidate and migrates properly. A candidate who took relaxed standards at any stage of the selection — not merely at the final stage — has been held not to migrate on higher final marks. And in at least one case the Court has held that migration may be barred where the recruitment rules themselves forbid it.

For an establishment officer the safe practice is to look at two things before recording a candidate as own merit: whether any relaxation of any kind was applied at any stage, and what the recruitment rules for that post actually say about migration.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q1. Does an ex-serviceman appointed against the ex-servicemen quota add to the SC total?

No. If he is an SC candidate he occupies one of the existing SC posts on the vertical roster and is simultaneously counted against the ex-servicemen horizontal quota. Neither total increases. Horizontal reservation decides who fills a post that already exists in a vertical compartment.

Q2. Is reservation for persons with benchmark disabilities vertical or horizontal?

Horizontal. It is four per cent of direct recruitment vacancies under section 34 of the RPwD Act, 2016, maintained on a separate 100-point vacancy-based roster with points 1, 26, 51 and 76 earmarked. Persons selected against it are placed in the appropriate vertical category — SC, ST, OBC or unreserved.

Q3. A woman from a reserved category qualifies on general merit. Does she count against the women's sub-quota?

Yes, if the sub-quota is a horizontal one. That is the asymmetry established in Rajesh Kumar Daria: under vertical reservation a candidate who qualifies on merit is counted against the unreserved category, but under horizontal reservation a candidate who qualifies on merit does count towards the horizontal quota.

Q4. Why are the PwBD and ex-servicemen rosters vacancy-based when everything else is post-based?

Because the 1997 change to post-based rosters applied to the vertical categories. The horizontal rosters were not converted, and continue to run as a running account across recruitment years, in blocks, with their own carry-forward rules. They are separate registers maintained alongside the post-based roster.

Related Reading

Next: own merit candidates, which is where the register columns from Part 6 do their real work.