Refusing to vacate the stay on reservation for Jats in Haryana, Punjab and Haryana High Court on Monday adjourned the hearing for July 4. Putting the hearing off, the vacation Bench of Justice M Jeyapaul and Justice Harinder Singh Sidhu said the matter required to be heard by a regular Bench of the court.
The High Court had stayed the operation of the “Haryana Backward Classes (reservation in services and admission in educational institutions) Act” on May 26. Haryana Vidhan Sabha had unanimously cleared the Bill for granting reservation to Jats and five other communities in Haryana after a terrible agitation by Jats in February this year. The stay on the reservation for Jats was issued on the petition filed by Murari lal Gupta, in which he had challenged the reservation provisions.Haryana government had approached High Court, seeking vacation of the ex-parte orders imposing stay on reservation. In its plea, Haryana has said that writ petition of Gupta was not maintainable being premature at the stage of its filing. The counsel for the state said that the petitioner approached the High Court without exhausting the available channel for redressal of his grievances.
He submitted that it was mandatory for the petitioner to move Haryana Backward Classes Commission, statutory authority to entertain and examine complaints/issues raised by the present petitioner in his writ petition.
The State counsel added that the process for carrying out recruitment to various post had already been initiated by Haryana Staff Selection Commission as well as the Haryana Public Service Commission. Besides this, the admissions to undergraduate and postgraduate courses for session 2016-17 were also open; and candidates had applied under the backward classes’ category. The admission process for professional courses such as the MBBS too had started for 2016-17 session.