Karnataka Governor Thawarchand Gehlot gives assent to SC internal quota bill, but implementation at dead end

Patil suggested that the internal quotas bill received assent after seven Congress ministers met the governor to urge approval of the measure.

The internal quota bill divides the proposed 17 per cent reservation for Scheduled Castes in the state, which covers 101 SC communities, into three groups. Sixteen communities from the SC Left (or untouchable) group will get six per cent reservation under Category-A, 19 communities from the SC Right (or touchable) group will get six per cent under Category-B, and 63 will get five per cent reservation under Category-C. Others who come under the Adi Andhra, Adi Dravida, and Adi Karnataka groups will be eligible to opt for reservation under Category A or Category B.

However, the Karnataka government said on Thursday that it would not implement the 17 per cent quota for SCs in recruitments to be done within the next month—until the issue of taking total quotas in the state beyond the 50 per cent barrier imposed by the Supreme Court is resolved by the courts. The state said it would instead arrive at a formula for providing internal quotas within the previously existing 15 per cent SC quota.

“It was 15 per cent (for Scheduled Castes) and 3 per cent (for Scheduled Tribes) when recruitment was going on earlier, and now the recruitment beyond 50 per cent (overall reservations in the state) has been stayed. Now, we have restarted with 50 per cent. Keeping in view the court judgments, we will take a decision on how to go about internal reservations,” Patil said.

The Karnataka government also announced a plan on Thursday to revive recruitments for state jobs within the next 30 days by opening recruitments for 56,000 of the 2.5 lakh posts that have been lying empty since recruitments stopped in October 2024.

Freeze on recruitment sparks protests

On February 24, hundreds of students and job aspirants from North Karnataka staged a massive demonstration demanding recruitment to the vacant government posts across Karnataka. The protest by All Karnataka State Students Association, the second in six months, highlighted the delays in recruitment notifications and fears of crossing the age limit for eligibility.

The protestors said that recruitment to government posts has remained frozen since November 2024, which has hurt their prospects. The delay would render them ineligible to apply for government jobs when applications are invited, the aspirants claimed.

Ahead of the 2023 Assembly polls, the previous BJP government in Karnataka had increased the SC quota in the state from 15 to 17 per cent and the ST quota from three to seven per cent.

In November 2024, when the Congress government formed a one-man commission under Justice H N Nagamohan Das to recommend internal reservations for SC communities within the 17 per cent total quota, it decided to freeze recruitments until the Commission produced an internal reservation formula for SC communities.

On August 20, 2025, the cabinet headed by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah approved the long-pending demand for an internal reservation system for Dalits by modifying the recommendation of the Justice Nagamohan Das commission.

The Justice Nagamohan Das commission had recommended classifying the Dalit sub-castes into five categories instead of the existing four, and to accord reservations according to their backwardness. The state cabinet classified the SCs into three sub-groups.

The Congress had promised to provide internal quotas for the SC community ahead of the 2023 state polls after CM Siddaramaiah had hesitated in his first tenure from 2013-2018.

“We feel that this decision of ours has succeeded in doing justice to the decades-long struggle for internal reservation. Our government has proved that Karnataka, a developing state, is also at the forefront of social justice,” Siddaramaiah said in the state legislature in a brief statement on the internal quotas last year.

However, the implementation of the internal reservation formula was stayed by the high court in October 2025, leading to the formulation of legislation for internal reservations by the Congress government in December 2025.

When the internal quotas bill was tabled in the legislature, Social Welfare Minister Dr HC Mahadevappa said that a Supreme Court order in August 2024 had empowered states to implement internal reservations for SC communities.