Haryana House clears Jat quota bill
CHANDIGARH: The Haryana assembly on Tuesday passed a bill to provide 10% reservation in government jobs and educational institutions to Jats and five other castes.
Once assented to by the governor and notified, the enacted law will further raise the quota to 67 % in the state, a legally indefensible position in view of the 50% quota ceiling fixed by the Supreme Court in the 1992 Indira Sawhney case.
The quota percentage in Haryana is already 57 % — Scheduled Castes (20%), Backward Classes (27%) and Economically Backward Persons (10%).
Before the bill is sent for the assent of the governor, the state government will denotify the special backward classes reservation notification that has been stayed by the Punjab and Haryana high court.
The assembly also passed another related legislation — the Haryana Backward Classes Commission Bill-2016 — to set up a statutory mechanism for examining requests of inclusion and complaints of over exclusion and under inclusion of backward classes of citizens.
The Congress was not present in the House when these bills were passed. PROTECTION FROM JUDICIAL SCRUTINY?
In order to secure the enacted quota law from judicial review, the state government will make a request to the central government to include the quota law in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution. This is being done to ensure that the quota law cannot be challenged as violative of fundamental rights and gets protection under Article 31-B of the Constitution.
However, even securing a law in the Ninth Schedule would not mean blanket protection from judicial review as has been held by the Supreme Court in IR Coelho v/s State of Tamil Nadu case.
In its January 2007 order, a nine- member apex court bench said all amendments to the Constitution made on or after April 24, 1973 by which the Ninth Schedule is amended by inclusion of various laws therein shall have to be tested on the touchstone of the basic or essential features of the Constitution as reflected in Article 21 read with Article 14, Article 19, and the principles underlying them.
THE BILL
On Tuesday, the Haryana Backward Classes (Reservation in Services and Admission in Educational Institutions) Bill2016 was passed by the House without any discussion in 10 minutes after being introduced by chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar.
As per the provisions of the bill, six castes — Jats, Jat Sikhs, Bishnois, Rors, Tyagis and Muslim or Mulla Jats — have been included in a newly created backward classes category.
They will get 10 % reservation in class 3 and 4 posts and 6 % reservation in class 1 and 2 posts. Besides, the existing 27 % reservation to 71 castes under BC (A) category and 6 castes under BC (B) category has also been brought under the ambit of the bill.
Till now, reservation for these two backward class categories was given by an executive order. Also, percentage of reservation for class 1 and 2 posts has been increased by 1 % for BC (A) and BC (B) categories – from 10 % to 11 % for BC (A) and 5 % to 6 % for BC (B).
TO ENSURE PROTECTION FROM JUDICIAL SCRUTINY, GOVT WILL SEND THE LEGISLATION TO CENTRE FOR INCLUSION IN THE NINTH SCHEDULE