New Delhi: A study commissioned by NHRC (National Human Rights Commission) two years ago has expressed doubts over the "constitutional sustainability" of the proposal for job reservation in private sector for those belonging to Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST).

The Report on Prevention of Atrocities Against SCs/STs commissioned by the NHRC, released last week, states that the private sector too is unlikely to accept it for a number of reasons.

"The Constitutional sustainability of such a proposal is in doubt. That is why even in the peak period of commitment to reservation as a strategy of empowerment of SCs and STs, Government did not consider introducing reservation of jobs in the private sector," says the study.

According to the report, with the intervention of the Supreme Court in restricting the scope and ambit of reservation from time to time, it "seems highly improbable" that the idea of reservation of jobs in the private sector would muster legal sanction.

The report was written by retired bureaucrat K B Saxena in 2002.

"There is no accountability of private sector enterprises to Government or to public. They are accountable to their own shareholders," says the report explaining why the proposal would not get materialised.