"We hold that both Articles 16(4) and 16(4a) do not confer any fundamental rights nor do they impose any constitutional duties but are only in the nature of enabling provisions vesting a discretion in the state to consider providing reservation if the circumstances mentioned in these Articles so warranted," the bench said.

Both Articles 16(4) and 16(4a) say though Article 16 provided for "equality of opportunity for all citizens in the matters relating to employment or to appointment to any office under the state", it would not "prevent the state from making any provision for reservation...".

The bench comprising Chief Justice A S Anand, Justices Kvenkataswami, G B Pattanaik, S P Kurdukar and M J Rao held that "in the matter of due representation in service for Backward Classes andScheduled Castes and Tribes, maintenance of efficiency of administration is of paramount importance."

The judgement written for the bench by Justice Rao clarified the apex court's earlier judgment on the issue.

The bench said "it must be noted that whenever a reserved candidate goes for recruitment at the initial level, he is not going through the normal process of selection which is applied to a general candidate but gets appointment to a post for his group."

"In a case where the reserved candidate has not opted to contest on his merit but has opted for the reserved post, if a roster level is set at level 1 for promotion of the reserved candidate at various roster points to level 2, the reserved candidate if he is otherwise at the end of the merit list, goes to level 2 without competing with general candidates and he goes up by a large number of places," it said.

"It deserves to be noticed that the roster points fixed at level 1 are not intended to determine any seniority at level 1 between generalcandidates and the reserved candidates," the court added.

The bench said "We, therefore, hold that the roster point promotees (reserved category) cannot count their seniority in the promoted category from the date of their continuous officiation in the promoted post vis-a-vis the general category candidates who were senior to them in the lower category and who were later promoted.

"On the other hand, the senior general candidate at the lower level, if he reaches the promotional level later but before the further promotion of the reserved candidate, he will have to be treated as senior, at the promotional level, to the reserved candidate even if the reserved candidate was earlier promoted to that level," the court said.