Newsroom24x7 Staff

Bhopal: The Bharatiya Janata Party Government in Madhya Pradesh led by Shivraj Singh Chouhan is bent upon continuing with reservation in promotion for government employees belonging to the SC/ST categories at any cost. The Chief Minister has even declared in public that there is no “true son of a mother” who can stop reservation in promotion. The State Government is also using its might and spending huge funds from the exchequer to push its case in the Supreme Court against the interests of government employees belonging to the general category, OBCs and minorities .

While SAPAKS is defending the interests of officers and employees from the general category, OBCs and the minorities in the Supreme Court, the Madhya Pradesh Government has put its entire weight behind AJJAKS (Association of SC/ST officers and employees) after the Jabalpur High Court had declared as null and void the Madhya Pradesh Government Rule of 2002 on 30 April 2016, which provided for reservation in promotion for the reserved category.

These days, the social media is saturated by posts from both sides – AJJAKS and SAPAKS.

MC Ahirwar, secretary of AJJAKS, the organisation of SC/ST government employees supporting Reservation in Promotion, has made an appeal to its members asking them to contribute one month’s salary to pay the fees to senior lawyers representing them in Supreme Court. A big question mark has been raised on a particular pointer by the AJJAKS secretary, in his appeal. He has observed that the senior lawyers play an important role in the Apex Court. According to him, four SLPs were admitted by the Supreme Court when they booked senior lawyers whereas 22 SLPs had been dismissed earlier. It has further been pointed out by him that other states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana and Rajasthan are keeping their eye on the Madhya Pradesh case in Supreme Court. These States have admitted that they could not utilise the “face value” of lawyers as they lacked an SC/ST organisation like AJJACKS in their states. Hence they neither had adequate funds nor the support of the State Government as is the case in Madhya Praesh. As a result they lost the reservation in promotion case in Supreme Court and the employees in the reserved category have been reverted in these States.

SAPAKS has strongly objected to the use of word “face-value” for senior Supreme Court lawyers by the AJJAKS secretary. SAPAKS media in-charge has said in a hard-hitting statement that supreme Court decisions are based on facts and it is wrong to say that these are pronounced on the basis of the lawyers’ face-value. This, according to SAPAKS, amounts to contempt of court.

The Supreme Court is seized of the matter as the Madhya Pradesh Government has challenged the order of the Jabalpur High Court that has not only declared the Madhya Pradesh Reservation in Promotion rule as null and void but also ordered that all those promoted under this provision be reverted.