Mumbai: A petition was filed in the Bombay high court on Monday, challenging the communication received from the state government to discontinue the jobs of state employees recruited in 2014 under the open category. The petition was mentioned before Justice Ranjit More and Justice Makra-nd Karnik by counsel Gunaratan Sadavarte. The court then asked the advocate general to remain present at the next hearing to reply to the petition.
According to the petition, Rekha Mandavkar and 14 others were employees of the state government. In 2014, the state government advertised to fill posts under the SEBC (Maratha quota) for class 1 civil engineering assistant, female health workers and male health workers.
The said posts were not filled from the ESBC category because on April 7, 2015, the HC stayed Mara-tha quota in government jobs and admissions in the education sector. After the HC order, the state called other caste candidates and selected them via procedure and issued appointment letters to them. The appointment letters specifically mentioned that appointments would be subject to the outcome of the SEBC petition which was pending before the HC.
The petitioners stated that several petitions were filed in the year 2017-18 and the high court gave interim protection to these petitioners and saved their jobs. The petitioners stated that no technical break was given to them and they had been working since 2014.
The petitioners stated that on July 11, 2019, the General Administration Department, Government of Maharashtra, issued a Government Resolution to discontinue the applicants’ services immediately on the basis of the high court order in favour of Maratha reservation. The said GR was challenged before the Nagpur bench of the high court and the HC quashed it.
The state government then approached the Supreme Court, which, too, upheld the HC order and said, “However, we made it clear that the order of the HC or the reservation in question shall not have any retrospective effect.”
According to the petitioners (present petition), state authorities failed to follow the apex court order in full spirit, and they were not supposed to go further with discontinuation of the applicants’ services.
