SHILLONG:
Over a month after the Meghalaya High Court stayed fresh appointments until the roster system was put in place, the state cabinet on May 10 gave its nod for implementation of the reservation policy in ‘letter and spirit’.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said, “We have finally approved the roster system. It will ensure that the reservation policy is implemented in letter and spirit.”
Asked as to when the process of job recruitment will resume, Sangma, however, said the state government will submit its affidavit before the Meghalaya High Court during the hearing to be held on Wednesday.
“Let’s see how things go but the important thing is the cabinet has approved the roster system and now we can take things forward,” he said adding it was a big exercise as it required a lot of detailed discussions.
He said the state government had already put in place a roster system for implementing the four per cent reservation for People with Disabilities (PwDs) in the state.
Explaining, he said with the roster system coming in if there are ten posts then there will be no reservation for the physically-challenged, but next if there are 15 posts up for recruitment, then the 15th post will go to the physically-challenged.
Hearing a petition on April 5, a bench headed by Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee described the absence of a roster system as a “deplorable state of affairs”, which left open possibilities of nepotism and arbitrariness, and worse forms of subversions.
“The further recruitment processes for all posts in the State will remain in the sense that no further appointments will be made until the roster system is put in place,” the court had said while hearing the matter.
“This will apply across State government agencies and instrumentalities in the State wherever the reservation policy is in vogue,” it added.
It was “alarming” that despite 50 years of statehood and an equal number of years of reservation in government jobs, the roster system was absent, the court had observed.
“This Bench was constrained to raise a question in the course of a recent matter as to how the reservation policy could be implemented without a roster,” it had asked.
The court had expressed shock that the same “distressing feature” existed while filling up various posts in the high court over the last decade of its existence.