HC miffed over govt job ads despite pending cases

Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Monday was irked with the state government for issuing advertisement for filling up vacant posts, even under the Maratha quota, in various government departments immediately after providing reservation to the community notwithstanding that several petitions are pending, challenging the grant of reservation to the Maratha community.

A division bench of Chief Justice Naresh Patil and Justice M.S. Karnik, while hearing a bunch of petitions on the Maratha reservation issue, said that the government should give courts some breathing space to hear the petitions and such disrespectful situations should be avoided.

Justice Patil further said that the government was technically not wrong in doing so, but considering the seriousness of the issue at hand, it should have waited. “This is a serious matter affecting millions of people, both for and against the reservation.”

Advocate Gunaratan Sadavarte, appearing in one of the petitions challenging the reservation, pointed out to the court that the Maharashtra Public Service Commi-ssion (MPSC) had published an advertisement inviting applications for jobs. “Applications have also been invited under the newly introduced socially and educationally backward class (SEBC) for the Maratha community,” advocate Sadavarte told the court.

Senior counsel V.A. Thorat, appearing for the government, said that only applications had been invited and that the final examination for the jobs would be held in July 2019. “The entire process of filling up the posts will take more than six months,” he said. The court, however, sought to know why the government was in such a rush to issue the advertisement.

Several people will send applications for the jobs, not knowing that the issue is being challenged, the court noted. The bench directed advocate Thorat to take instructions from the government on whether the state would recruit people under the quota, pending hearing of the petitions.