SBC quota to be de-notified today
JAT QUOTA BILL TO BE SENT TO GOVERNOR FOR ASSENT ONLY AFTER DE-NOTIFICATION
CHANDIGARH: With the Haryana assembly on Tuesday passing the Haryana Backward Classes (Reservation in Services and Admission in Educational Institutions) Bill, 2016 to provide 10% reservation in government jobs and educational institutions to Jats and five other castes, the state government on Thursday will pass an order to de-notify the existing notifications of 2013 providing 10% reservation to Jats and five other castes under special backward classes (SBC).
The Bill will be sent to the governor for assent only after the SBC notification gets de-notifed. The Bill once assented to by the Governor will, in a way, substitute the SBC notification.
The 10% SBC quota, which was granted by way of an executive order during the Congress rule, was stayed by the Punjab and Haryana high court on July 27, 2015. Since the BJP regime has replicated the SBC provisions to a large extent, the government has decided to withdraw the SBC notification, stayed by the HC, to render it infructuous, thus avoiding the contempt of the high court. A petition or application to the court becomes infructuous when the fundamental premise upon which the petition is based ceases to exist. The opinion of Haryana advocate general BR Mahajan was taken on the de-notification of SBC quota, it being a sub-judice matter. LAW POINT
An important law point is that when the SBC quota was stayed by the high court on the grounds that it was given to Jats and others on the basis of the report of Justice KC Gupta Backward Classes Commission which was not accepted by the Supreme Court, then how much legal validity the fresh quota provisions made by the government under a Bill will carry since the state government has primarily relied on the rec- ommendations of the very same commission to make out a case for grant of quota to Jats and others.
Officials said the quota Bill would be notified by the state government after becoming a law and subsequently the Haryana Backward Classes (Reservation in Services and Admission in Educational Institutions) Act, 2016 will be sent to the central government with a request to include it in the Ninth Schedule to the Constitution to protect it from judicial review. In the event of the central government concurring with the state government, it would have to introduce a Constitution Amendment Bill in the Parliament to amend the Ninth Schedule and insert the Haryana quota law in it.