Verify claims on representation of Jats among DSPs in police: HC

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab and Haryana high court on Thursday asked the Haryana government to verify claims of the petitioners about representation of Jats among the deputy superintendent of police (DSPs) officers.

The direction was passed by the high court bench of justice SS Saron and justice Lisa Gill, while hearing the petitions filed to challenge award of quota to Jats and five other communities in Haryana in 2016. The quota order was stayed by the high court in May, 2016. The petitioners had claimed that Jats comprise of 37% of the deputy superintendent of police in the Haryana Police.

The petitioners had also claimed that this information was procured by them under the Right to Information Act.

However, the government claimed that there wasn’t any data available on the basis of caste of IAS, IPS, IFS and DSPs, as claimed by the petitioners.

The petitioners’ though admitted that a portion of data was not procured officially, but argued that it was checked independently in respect of other categories, while the data on DSPs was procured under Right to Information.

As per the petitioners, 62% of IFS officers of the state with Haryana domicile are Jats, while in HCS (executive) cadre, 42% of the officers with state domicile are Jats. There are 39% Jats with state domicile among the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) cadre of 72 officers.

Among IPS officers, Jats represent about 37% of the cadre with state domicile in the state, the petitioners have claimed.

They also argued that Jats’ proportion in jobs is much higher than their share in the population. The Jat community comprise of 25% of Haryana’s population. The petitioners also produced a data procured from seven districts of Haryana about representation of Jats among teachers and students enrolled in schools.

They claimed that the data was procured through a Right to Information (RTI) plea, according to which of the 148 school principals, 58% are Jats; of the 1,593 lecturers, 46% are Jats and of the 649 teachers, 35% are Jats.

They further argued that in JBT teachers category, of the 2,683, 41% belong to the Jat community. There are 2,002,184 students enrolled between Classes 1-12, 13% are from the Jat community. The court was told that the data was collected to counter the claims of Justice (retd) KC Gupta Commission. They claimed that the commission, using “fraudulent means”, portrayed the data in a manner which shows Jats as backwards.