RAJ KUMAR
Ranchi, April 19: The Hemant Soren government has maintained a studied silence after Governor C P Radhakrishnan returned the Jharkhand Reservation in Vacancies of Posts and Services (Amendment) Bill, 2022, a bill related to increasing the limit of reservation for OBCs and other categories in Jharkhand.
The government had got the bill passed in haste on November 11 last year after having feared to lose power in view of the Election Commission’s opinion to disqualify Hemant Soren as an MLA in an office of profit case.
The bill stipulated to increase the reservation in government jobs and education institutions for Other Backward Communities in the state from 14% to 27%. The bill also increased reservation for Scheduled Tribes from 26% to 28% and SCs from 10% to 12%. With this, the percentage of total reservation in Jharkhand will be 77%, including 10% for economically weaker sections (EWS) among forward castes.
The Governor returned the bill in March after he got advice from Attorney General of India R Venkataramani on the matter. While returning the bill, the governor also sent the attorney general’s opinion and directed the state government to review it.
However, the government, which was in a hurry last year, chose to remain silent on it so far.
According to sources, the Attorney General, in his opinion, described the said bill as contrary to the orders of the Supreme Court. According to him, the Supreme Court in the Indira Sawhney case fixed the caste reservation limit at 50 per cent, while the said bill proposed to increase this limit to 67 per cent. He has also mentioned other judgments related to reservation in his opinion.
It is worth mentioning that the state government had sent this bill to the Raj Bhavan for approval when Ramesh Bais was governor. He had sought the opinion of the attorney general on that. However, before he could get an opinion, he was appointed the Maharashtra governor. Now the present governor has completed his pending work.
Notably, the state government had also passed the bill related to Khatiyan-based local policy of 1932 as well as the bill related to increasing the reservation limit and sent it to the Raj Bhavan for the governor’s approval. Also, it was proposed to send both the Bills to the President, so that both the Bills could be included in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution.
The state government had called a special session of the assembly on November 11 2022 to pass the amendment bill increasing the reservation percentage of OBCs, STs and SCs. The bill was passed unanimously.
The then Governor Bais had already returned the 1932 Khatiyan-based local policy bill to the state government saying that the state legislature did not have the right to take decisions on this issue. Also, he mentioned, it was against the orders of the Supreme Court and the High Court.
