According to a ruling by the Supreme Court, candidates from Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, and Economically Weaker Sections are eligible for general category positions if they meet the requirements.
The Supreme Court's historic decision in the 1992 Indra Sawhney case, which gave OBCs a 27% reservation in government positions, served as the model for the decision made by a bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Augustine G. Masih.
The panel rejected a case filed by the Rajasthan High Court, which had prohibited reserved category candidates from being assigned to general category positions even though they had received more marks than the general category threshold.
HC moved SC when an HC division bench decided in favor of candidates from the reserved category who wished to be considered for general category positions, claiming that doing so would amount to giving them double benefits.
"We hold that the word 'open' connotes nothing but 'open', meaning that vacant posts which are sought to be filled by earmarking them as 'open' do not fall in any category," Justice Datta wrote in the ruling.
The Supreme Court upheld the ruling of the HC division bench, stating that "the availability of reservation doesn't operate as a bar for a reserved category candidate from being considered on merit against the unreserved category."
A written exam and an interview served as the foundation for the HC hiring procedure. According to SC, a candidate from the reserved category should be regarded as being in the general category when they appear for an interview if they receive more marks than the general category cutoff.
They would be classified under the reserved category to which they belonged if their cumulative scores were below the general category cutoff.
