Srinagar: The Omar Abdullah government has set up a sub-committee to revisit the changes effected by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led union government to Jammu and Kashmir’s reservation policy in light of simmering anger in the union territory.
An order issued by the General Administration Department (GAD) on Tuesday, December 10, said that the committee, comprising three ministers from Abdullah’s cabinet, would “examine the grievances projected by a section of aspirants for various posts regarding Reservation Rules, in consultation with all stakeholders.”
The order said that the committee “shall be serviced by the Social Welfare Department and shall submit its report to the Council of Ministers.” However, it didn’t specify any deadline.
The GAD order comes nearly a fortnight after Abdullah told reporters in Jammu that the government will set up a sub-committee to examine the reservation policy, which he said was raising concerns among the youngsters belonging to “open merit” (OM) category.
Abdullah said that the committee will take a “holistic view” of the reservation rules which provide only about 40% reservation in educational institutions and government for OM category candidates and job aspirants.
Sources said that the Abdullah government was mulling to “bring parity” in reservation rules as per the population figures. However, observers believe that such a move could be fraught with political consequences.
The reservation rules were tweaked to accommodate the Pahadis and three other “Pasmanda” communities after they were granted tribal status by the BJP-led Union government as part of its political strategy to consolidate its electoral foothold in Jammu and Kashmir.
Even though the Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that reservations could not exceed 50%, terming any diversion as a violation of “equal access as guaranteed by the Constitution,” Sahil Parray, an activist who has been advocating for the rescinding of the new rules, said that the apex court guidelines have been violated in Jammu and Kashmir.
In a recent petition in the Jammu and Kashmir high court, a group of aggrieved job aspirants alleged that the new reservation rules have shrunk the government jobs and seats for OM aspirants in educational institutions from 57% to 33%.
An analysis by The Wire shows that only 40% of recent jobs advertised by the government and seats offered by government-run educational institutions and professional colleges were reserved for OM aspirants.
For instance, Jammu and Kashmir Public Service Commission invited applications for 30 posts in Jammu and Kashmir Administrative Service (JKAS) this session of which only 12 were reserved for OM aspirants while the remaining 18 vacancies were reserved for other categories.
In 2018, when Jammu and Kashmir was a state, out of 27 JKAS vacancies, 16 were reserved for OM aspirants.
A series of recent advertisements to fill up the vacancies in various Jammu and Kashmir government departments limited the quota for OM aspirants to as low as 20%, while the remaining seats have been reserved for different categories that make up only 30% of the population, activist Parray said.
The 2024 selection list of candidates for the MBBS course at Government Medical College (GMC) in Udhampur shows that 49 seats have been filled in the first round of counselling with candidates from reserved categories, triggering a debate on the negative impact of the reservation policy on the quality of healthcare in J&K in coming years.
In GMC Doda also, only three students from the open merit category made it to the selection list of 71 candidates. Both the colleges have intake capacity of 100 seats each year.
In its election manifesto, the ruling Jammu and Kashmir National Conference had promised to “correct” the “injustice and imbalance” caused by the new reservation rules. “It is a welcome step but the government has not fixed any deadline for the committee to submit its report which needs to be corrected,” Parray said.
The issue of lopsided reservation also reached the high court where a group of petitioners have alleged that the amendments to Reservation Rules of 2005 has shrunk the government jobs and seats in educational institutions for open merit aspirants from 57% to 33%.
The petition said that the quota of Residents of Backward Area has decreased from 20% to 10% while Scheduled Tribe (ST) quota has doubled from 10% to 20%, which includes Pahadis and other communities who were granted tribal status in a controversial move by the BJP government earlier this year.
The court ruled on December 4 that all the appointments made under the new reservation rules “shall be subject to the outcome of the petition seeking declaration of the rules null and void.”
The issue had also threatened to turn into a major row after senior National Conference leader and Lok Sabha parliamentarian from Srinagar, Syed Ruhullah Mehdi, vowed last month to join a protest which was being planned by some activists against the Abdullah government.
Earlier, after chairing his second cabinet meeting in Jammu last month, Abdullah said that the sub-committee will examine the issue of new reservation rules in view of the recent orders of the Supreme Court. “The committee will suggest corrective measures so that we don’t deprive anyone of their rights and justice is done to all,” he said.
