Nagpur bench stays the government order that assured protection to all ST quota employees, appointed from 1995 to 2001, whose certificates turned out to be fake or never verified
In a major setback to the Devendra Fadnavis-led government, the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court on Monday stayed a six-month-old government order, granting blanket amnesty to all those employees who got government jobs on the basis of fake Schedule Tribe (ST) certificates.
Justices Bhushan Dhramadhikari and Pradip Deshmukh stayed the government order issued on October 21, 2015, which had assured that no ST quota employees hired between June 15, 1995 and October 17, 2001 would be terminated from the government and semi-government services.
The interim order has sent shock waves among all ST employees, some of whom even enjoyed promotions in their illegally acquired posts. According to legal experts, even though the final verdict in the case is yet to come, the government is now supposed to start the procedure to terminate the services of nearly 40,000 employees.
Interestingly, no government has ever tried to identify the exact number of fake tribals even after the reports of its own agencies claiming 40-45% infiltration in the state administration by bogus tribals. Sources in the government said over 1.5 lakh employees have taken ST quota jobs illegally. Many of them are in top bureaucracy as well. The caste certificate scam has been alleged in the state since 1974, consistently robbing the real tribals off their rights.
Earlier this month, dna had carried a series of reports on how the BJP-Sena government and the previous governments adopted a liberal approach towards the issue, because of the vote bank politics. Tribal development minister Vishnu Savara had cited inability to terminate such a large number of employees "considering social and political ramifications".
In 1995, the Sena-led government brought in the first-ever amnesty scheme to retain all ST employees appointed till June 15, 1995. The Manohar Joshi government also created a "Special Backward Category" by clubbing two dozen castes and offering them 4% reservation. The Fadnavis government then extended the amnesty to people hired till 2001.
Nagpur-based union Organisation for rights of tribals (ORT) finally dragged the government to the high court against this order in October. The government didn't file a detailed reply, leading to adjournment of the case a few times. The government pleader ultimately came up with a short reply on Monday.
ORT founder president Rajendra Maraskolhe, through his advocate Mohan Sudame, argued that by issuing this GR, the government violated its own law enacted in 2001, which mandated stripping of jobs and admission of the quota candidates in case their caste certificate wasn't verified by the Caste Verification Committee.
The petitioner also cited a Supreme Court order of September 2, 1994, which stated that the employee must be stripped from the job if his caste certificate was found to be bogus. They also pleaded that the government protection has deprived the tribals of from their rights, affecting the community's development badly, and that the government never revealed how many employees could be affected, if the 2001 Act was followed strictly.
The government counsel sought to justify that the GR was "just a temporary measure", as the group of ministers didn't get enough time to arrive at a conclusion on the matter. Rejecting the government argument, the court observed that the government can't violate its own Act, unless it was amended. It passed an interim order staying the GR and ordered "rule returnable early", which means admitted for final hearing on an early date.
What is 2001 law
To curb malpractices, the Congress-NCP government enacted a law in 2001 – The Maharashtra Schedule Castes, Schedule Tribes, De-notified Tribes (Vimukta Jatis), Other Backward Classes and Special Backward Category (Regulation of Issuance and Verification of) Caste Certificate Act 2000. It mandates caste verification for all quota hiring and admission. This led to setting up of a Caste Verification Committee at the divisional level, where each caste certificate issued by the revenue department is supposed to be verified.
PDFs
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-tribals-won-t-lose-posts-nor-bogus-ones-their-jobs-2199107
http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-government-shies-away-from-stripping-bogus-tribals-of-their-jobs-2200170
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