Jat quota row: ‘9th Schedule not final protection’

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However, All India Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti (AIJASS) president Yashpal Malik has blamed Abhimanyu for lying on the issue of 9th Schedule. “If it had no meaning, then why did they (BJP government) make an announcement to include the quota law in 9th Schedule one year back,” he asked.

The state Assembly in March 2016 had unanimously passed a bill providing quota to Jats under a newly carved out Backward Class C category. Five other communities — Jat Sikh, Muslim Jat, Bishnoi, Ror and Tyagi — have also been included in the new category. According to the bill, members of this category would be entitled to 10 per cent reservation in government service and admission in educational institutions. Then, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar had said that the state government would now request the Centre to include this Act in 9th Schedule read with Article 31B of the Constitution to give it immunity from judicial review.

“No law in the country to give reservation to any community in the country is clearer than the Haryana law for quota benefit. After enactment of any law, the judiciary has rthe ight to legally scrutinise the same and that process is going on,” said Abhimanyu.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court in May 2016 had stayed the government’s decision to grant reservation to Jats and five other communities in jobs and educational institutions under the newly created Backward Class ‘C’ category. A PIL was filed by a Bhiwani resident, Murari Lal Gupta, to challenge the constitutional validity of The Haryana Backward Classes (Reservation in Services and Admission in Educational Institutions) Act, 2016. It was on expected lines that the law would be challenged in the high court as the state had exceeded the 50 per cent ceiling for reservation fixed by the Supreme Court. After Tamil Nadu, Haryana had become the second state in the country to have more than 50 per cent reservation in jobs and admission to educational institutions.

All India Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti has given a call to stage dharnas in 19 districts of the state from January 29. “The dharnas will be held in rural areas in each of the 19 districts,” said Malik. According to him, release of youths arrested in “false cases” in connection with the 2016 quota stir is their main demand of the agitation.