BENGALURU: With the previous Congress government having challenged the Supreme Court by passing a law and circumventing the apex court verdict on scraping promotions by way of reservation of SC/ST government employees, the present coalition government appears to have continued the “tradition” by seeking to implement the same act.The state cabinet on Thursday directed the chief secretary T M Vijay Bhaskar to file an application at the SC , indicating that the state government will be implementing the Karnataka Extension of Consequential Seniority to government servants promoted on the basis of reservation bill of 2017, which protects thousands of government employees who have received promotions by way of reservations since 1978.Briefing the media, after the cabinet meeting, law minister Krishna Byre Gowda said the SC/ST promotions case is scheduled for hearing on September 12, where the application will be filed on behalf of the state government.“The SC in its previous hearing had asked the government to maintain the status quo, which effectively meant that it could not implement the act. However, this issue has been dragging along for a long time with the SC postponing the issue over the last two hearings. As a result, the state cabinet has directed the chief secretary to file an application clearly indicating the intent of the state government to implement the act subject to the SC final directives,” said Gowda.The minister said the cabinet has decided that the matter could not be continued on the same lines in the court and that directions have been given to the CS to ensure that the state government arguments in the court and the application are both “strongly worded”.“The state has passed an act with the complete assent of the legislature and also received the assent of the President of India. In such a scenario, the government is asking the CS to file an application that the government will be implementing the act subject to the final decision of the SC,” said the minister.