Shillong, March 21: The HYC has petitioned Law Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh on the need to rectify the Office Memorandum on reservation roster system.
In a letter addressed to Lyngdoh on Tuesday, the HYC president Robert June Kharjahrin and general secretary Roy Kupar Synrem said that in their opinion, the guidelines for the preparation of reservation roster as per the office memorandum issued on May 10, 2022 is contradictory to the Resolution of January 12, 1972.
The office memorandum was following the orders of the High Court of Meghalaya on April 5 and 20 last year.
The HYC leaders pointed out that the guidelines as per the office memorandum of May 10 last year provide that the roster shall be prepared since the time the reservation policy came into effect from 1972. However, the resolution specifies in paragraph 2 that after the expiry of the second year, the reservations will be treated as lapsed in case of non-filling of reserved category posts in any recruitment year.
“That, it is also a settled law that any notification in order to have retrospective effect has to be authorised by a statute and in our opinion the Office Memorandum dated 10h May, 2022 has no statute which authorised to prepare the Reservation Roster to be effective retrospectively. Hence, it is illegal and the Government must rectify it at the earliest”, the HYC said.
The HYC also pointed out that in various advertisements in government offices, certain reserved categories got more seats than others because of ‘this faulty and illegal Office Memorandum. This may lead to deprivation of job to the deserving candidates and also leads to unnecessary litigation’.
The organisation said that at Point D (1) of the office memorandum, it was stated that “In order to prepare the Reservation Roster, names of all the candidates holding the post as on the date of notification of this O.M.,
starting with the earliest appointee, since the time the Reservation Policy came into effect, subject to information being available, shall be
filled up in the Reservation Roster against the point in the Roster”.
The HYC pointed out that ‘as per the Resolution No. PER.222/71/138, Dated Shillong, the 12th January, 1972 which provides for the Reservation Policy in the
State, it is clearly stated in Paragraph 2 that “f sufficient number of suitable candidates for filling up the reserved vacancies are not available from the respective classes in any particular year, then such vacancies
will be available to others. But the deficiency in the number of Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes will be carried forward to the next recruitment year and made good in the recruitment of that year, provided that the reservation on account of the deficiency shall not be carried forward for more than one year. After the expiry of the second year, these reservations shall be treated as lapsed. It has also been decided that at no time shall the number of normal reserved vacancies and the carry forward vacancies together exceed 90 per cent of the total number of vacancies in that year’.
“It maybe mentioned herein that the Hon’ble High Court of Meghalaya vide Order dated 11.05.2022 in PIL No. 5/2022 (In Re sou motu preparation of roster regarding implementation of the State Resrvation Policy Vs State of Meghalaya) has clearly stated that “Since the roster system is now in place and without going into the merits thereof, the sou motu proceedings are dropped. Further the Honble High Court has clearly stated that the validity of the roster system has not been gone into”. Hence, it may not be misconstrued that the Hon’ble High Court has accepted the validity of the Roster System as per the Office Memorandum dated 10th May, 2022″, the HYC added
