New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday ordered a status quo in matters of reservation in promotion for SC/STs, thereby putting brakes on promotion or demotion of government employees in terms of its Constitution Bench verdict.

A bench led by Justice SA Bobde took into account a request made by Attorney General KK Venugopal and lawyers for various states that the scheme in accordance with the court verdict was still being contemplated and hence, there should be no movement in these matters.

The Centre had moved the top court after an order of the Delhi High Court, which gave it three months to implement the reservation in promotion based on quantifiable data on adequacy of representation of the SC/STs.

Venugopal and others argued that it was not possible to comply with the order within three months and they required some more clarification from the apex court on implementation of the order.

Noting that the bunch of matters will take time, the bench posted it in October, while tagging with similar cases filed earlier by Tripura and Maharashtra governments. The court had granted status quo in earlier cases too.

By a Constitution Bench ruling last year, the Supreme Court had slightly tweaked its judgment in the M Nagaraj case. It affirmed the reservation in promotion policy but added the 'creamy layer' principle for SC and ST employees too, directing the Centre and states to exclude such employees from the quota benefits.

Further, it held that while there will not be any requirement to collect quantifiable data for the purpose of identification of the backward classes, such data will have to be gathered to ascertain adequacy of representation as well as for overall efficiency.