Article 15 in Service Matters

INTRODUCTION

The general principle of article 15 which talks about no discrimination on certain grounds also exists in service matters. No person can be discriminated only on the grounds of race, caste, sex, religion, place of birth or any of them in his appointment to any government office. But there are certain exceptions to this rule which are given in the section itself.

The provisions given under article 15 are the provisions which relates to reservation. The Provisions of Reservation are Exceptions to the provisions of equality. In our constitution provision relating to reservation are contain in article 15(3), Article 15(4), Article 16(3), Article 16(4) and Article 16(4) A. Before discussion about the exceptions we should know the general rule.

Article 14 provides: "The state shall not deny any person equality before law and equal protection of laws within territory of India.

Article 15(1) provides: "The state shall not discriminate against any citizen on ground only of religion, race caste, sex, and place of birth or any of them.[1]

Article 15(2) provides : No citizen shall, on grounds only of race religion, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them, be subject to any disability, liability, restriction or condition with regard to –

(a) Access to shops, public restaurants, hotels and places of public entertainments or

(b) the use of wells, tanks, bathing, ghats, hotels and places of public resort maintained wholly or partly out of state funds or dedicated to the use of general public.[2]

After knowing the provision of equality we can understand the meaning of these provisions and how we can come to the provisions of reservation but before that we should know the object and purpose of these provisions.

Object and Purposes

Reservations are intended to increase the social diversity in the campuses and workplaces by lowering the entry criteria for certain identifiable groups, caste, gender, state of domicile are the basic...