New Delhi: The Cabinet has cleared a proposal to amend the
Constitution to allow reservation in promotions for Scheduled Castes and
Scheduled Tribes in public services. The proposal will now be sent to a
parliamentary committee for review, before being put to a vote. The
amendments will enable state governments to provide reservation in jobs.
Amending the Constitution became necessary after the Supreme Court struck down in April this year, a decision made by Mayawati when she was Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, to provide reservation for SC/STs in promotion to higher posts in government departments
Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party, which rules UP now, has vowed to oppose the bill, which the government hopes to introduce in Parliament before the current session ends this week. At an all-party meeting on the issue in August, the SP stood out in its opposition; all other political formations supported quota in reservations. Mulayam Singh Yadav, who provides outside support to the UPA government and has bailed it out of sticky positions many times, sees this move as ppolitically damaging to his other backward caste (OBC) vote. The SP wants all quota benefits to be extended to OBCs. "This stand of the cabinet is wrong. The Samajwadi Party is against this and we will continue to protest," senior SP leader Ram Gopal Yadav said today. (Poll: Do you support quotas for promotion in govt jobs?)
Amending the Constitution became necessary after the Supreme Court struck down in April this year, a decision made by Mayawati when she was Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, to provide reservation for SC/STs in promotion to higher posts in government departments
Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party, which rules UP now, has vowed to oppose the bill, which the government hopes to introduce in Parliament before the current session ends this week. At an all-party meeting on the issue in August, the SP stood out in its opposition; all other political formations supported quota in reservations. Mulayam Singh Yadav, who provides outside support to the UPA government and has bailed it out of sticky positions many times, sees this move as ppolitically damaging to his other backward caste (OBC) vote. The SP wants all quota benefits to be extended to OBCs. "This stand of the cabinet is wrong. The Samajwadi Party is against this and we will continue to protest," senior SP leader Ram Gopal Yadav said today. (Poll: Do you support quotas for promotion in govt jobs?)
But Mayawati, who heads the Bahujan Samaj Party, is making focused
efforts to get political parties to cooperate and allow a discussion and
vote on the bill. She has met BJP leaders Sushma Swaraj and Arun
Jaitley to seek their support. She said today, "We want to request for a
voting on the bill in this session and request NDA to help us in this.
We want UPA also to appeal to NDA to help us pass this bill."
To be passed this bill will need a two-thirds majority in Parliament as it seeks to amend the Constitution. Cobbling that together seems a tough task as Parliament has not been functioning because of daily disruptions by the BJP, which is demanding the PM's resignation in connection with a coal scandal. The bill might well be pushed to the Winter Session.
When it quashed the Mayawati decision, the Supreme Court had questioned this criterion for promotion, saying the government needed to quantify that Dalits and backwards were insufficiently represented in the public services and therefore needed this quota. The court had said that three aspects needed to be looked into for reservations in promotions: backwardness, representation and overall administrative efficiency.
Attorney General GE Vahanvati has warned the government that any law on the reservations issue should be framed with extreme caution because it is likely to be legally challenged.
The Prime Minister has said that a legally sustainable solution will be found. To legally combat any challenge, the proposed bill seeks to amend four key articles of the Constitution.
However, it might still run into rough weather in the courts. Constitutional expert PP Rao said that if the government brings in amendment without "curing the defects" pointed out by SC then it may not stand legal scrutiny.
To be passed this bill will need a two-thirds majority in Parliament as it seeks to amend the Constitution. Cobbling that together seems a tough task as Parliament has not been functioning because of daily disruptions by the BJP, which is demanding the PM's resignation in connection with a coal scandal. The bill might well be pushed to the Winter Session.
When it quashed the Mayawati decision, the Supreme Court had questioned this criterion for promotion, saying the government needed to quantify that Dalits and backwards were insufficiently represented in the public services and therefore needed this quota. The court had said that three aspects needed to be looked into for reservations in promotions: backwardness, representation and overall administrative efficiency.
Attorney General GE Vahanvati has warned the government that any law on the reservations issue should be framed with extreme caution because it is likely to be legally challenged.
The Prime Minister has said that a legally sustainable solution will be found. To legally combat any challenge, the proposed bill seeks to amend four key articles of the Constitution.
However, it might still run into rough weather in the courts. Constitutional expert PP Rao said that if the government brings in amendment without "curing the defects" pointed out by SC then it may not stand legal scrutiny.
Source : http://www.ndtv.com, September 04, 2012 15:45 IST
No comments:
Post a Comment