GG News Bureau
Patna, 20th June. In a major setback to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the Patna High Court has struck down the state’s 65 percent reservation in government jobs and education. This policy, introduced last year following a statewide caste survey, had pushed the reservation quota beyond the 50 percent cap mandated by the Supreme Court.
The decision was delivered by a division bench led by Chief Justice K Vinod Chandran in response to petitions opposing the legislation introduced by the Nitish Kumar government in November 2023. At the time, Kumar’s JDU was allied with the RJD and Congress. A month later, he switched alliances to the BJP and assumed the Chief Minister position again.
Ritika Rani, counsel for the petitioners, informed PTI, “We had submitted that the amendments to the reservation laws were violative of the Constitution. After hearing both sides, the court reserved its judgment in March. Today, the final order has come.”
In November last year, following the unanimous passage of the reservation bill by the Bihar Assembly, the Nitish Kumar government issued gazette notifications to raise the quota for deprived castes from 50 to 65 percent in state government jobs and educational institutions. Senior JDU leader and minister Ashok Choudhary indicated that the state government would study the judgment and challenge it in the Supreme Court.
RJD’s Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Kumar Jha expressed disappointment with the high court ruling, calling it an “unfortunate” development. “Such rulings prolong the journey towards social justice. We remember Tamil Nadu had to struggle for many years; we will do the same. But we must see what is the social background of these petitioners, who is controlling them from behind the curtains. We saw the same thing during the caste survey,” Jha remarked.
Jha emphasized the RJD’s demand to place reservation under the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution to protect it from court orders. “The NDA government is in power now, courtesy of Nitish Kumar. He should go to the higher court and secure the rights of a big population,” he added.
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