By which of the following Constitutional Amendment Clause (4B) was added to Article 16 of the Constitution?

S.16 has 6 clauses.

Clause 1 states that there shall be equal opportunity for the citizens in the matter of employment or appointment to any office under the State. This clause does not provide the right to employment; it only gives the right to equal opportunity in case of any available vacancy in public employment. This clause also applies to promotions or termination and other aspects of state employment. This equality is applied only to the people who are applying for the same employment opportunity or are working in the same post.

Clause 2 states that there will be no discrimination based on religion, race, caste, sex, descent, place of birth, residence in employment. The state cannot discriminate only on the basis of the above criterias.

It is stated in clause 3 of Article 16 that nothing in this article shall prevent Parliament from making any law which prescribes to the citizens who are appointed to any office under the State in regard to any requirements as to residence within that State or Union territory prior to employment or appointment to any office under the State.

Article 16(4) of the Indian constitution provides for the reservation of services under the State in favor of the backward class of citizens. Backward class includes Schedule Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

S.16(4a)- the Parliament enacted the 77th Amendment Act, 1995 and added clause (4A) to Article 16 of the Constitution, thereby enabling the Parliament to make provisions for reservation for SCs and STs in promotion posts. This simply meant that even after the judgment of mandal case, the reservation in promotion in government jobs, shall continue.
With the 85th consti amendment -The phrase 'in situations of promotion to any class' was replaced with 'in matters of promotion, with consequential seniority, to any class' in clause (4A) of Article 16 of the Indian Constitution

Clause (4B) was added to the Indian Constitution by way of 81st Amendment Act, 2000. It was added to the Constitution with the intent that the backlog vacancies which could not be filled due to unavailability of eligible candidates of the SEBC category in a previous or preceding year, shall not be clubbed with the 50 percent reservation for the SCs and STs and Other Backward Classes on the total number of vacancies in the next year.

Clause (5) exempts a law from the application of clauses (1) and (2), which require the incumbent of any office to be religiously qualified for appointment.



Clause (6) was added to Article 16 by the 103rd Amendment Act, 2019, which came into effect on January 14, 2019, and empowers the State to make various provisions for reservation in appointments of members of the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) of society to government posts. However, these provisions must be within the 10% ceiling, in addition to the existing reservations.