Horizontal reservation demand in Govt jobs unconstitutional: HC

The long standing demand of the statehood activists for 10 per cent horizontal reservation in Government jobs has been declared unconstitutional by the High Court of Uttarakhand. This decision of the High Court has come as a jolt for the statehood activists supporting the demand and the state government. The horizontal reservation demand was termed unconstitutional by the High Court single bench of justice Lokpal Singh on Wednesday.

According to the case details, a public interest litigation in the matter had stated that the state government had issued two separate government orders to provide horizontal reservation in government jobs to statehood activists which is not correct. In the past when this matter was presented in the division bench of the high court, the two justices had different views with justice Sudhanshu Dhulia finding reservation for statehood activists unconstitutional while justice UC Dhyani had opined in favour of reservation. After this the chief justice KM Joseph had referred the matter to the third bench of the High Court.

Arguing in the case, advocate Mahesh Chandra Pant submitted before the single bench on Wednesday that if the government provides job reservation to statehood activists then all the people of the state who had participated in the statehood movement should be provided this facility. The masses had taken part in the movement which was in support of the demand for creation of a separate state. Providing reservation only to those activists who had gone to jail is not logical, the advocate stated.It is pertinent to mention here that various groups of statehood activists had been demanding 10 per cent horizontal reservation in government jobs. Considering this demand, the previous state government had facilitated 10 per cent reservation for statehood activists in government jobs. While such groups of statehood activists have also been staging demonstrations regularly in support of their demand, this and other issues of the statehood activists have also been accorded attention by successive state governments.