500 reserved posts of constables in Haryana to be filled up from gen category

Saurabh Malik
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, February 23

As many as 500 posts of constables in Haryana Police reserved for Special Backward Class (SBS) will be filled up from the general category. Disposing of a petition, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has directed the state of Haryana and other respondents to consider the case of petitioner-candidates against posts meant for the SBC category.

The direction by Ritu Bahri came on a petition filed by Krishan and other petitioners through counsel Mazlish Khan and Vikram Sheoran. The petitioners were seeking issuance of directions to the respondents to fill up the 500 posts of constables in Haryana Police reserved in favour of SBC from among the general category candidates.

As the case came up for hearing, the counsel appearing for Haryana told Justice Bahri’s Bench that the vacancies reserved for SBC were now being filled up from among the general category candidates in accordance with instructions issued by the government.

The counsel said the state government’s decision was in keeping with a High Court judgment in a civil writ petition filed in 2011 by Garima Jindal against HVPNL and another respondent.

“In view of the statement of the state counsel, the present petition stands disposed of with a direction to the respondents to consider the case of the petitioners against posts meant for SBC category, which are now being filled treating these posts to be under the general category,” Justice Bahri concluded.

Khan had earlier filed an application praying for issuance of appointment letters to the general category candidates against the post reserved to SBC on the grounds that the reservation for the category had been withdrawn by the state government.

Going into the background of the matter, Khan contended that the notification for posts was issued in July 2015, and 500 posts were reserved for the SBC category. “So the posts which were taken from the general category and reserved for SBC category are still lying vacant,” he added.

In an attempt to substantiate his contentions, Khan said the government in July 2015 issued an instruction stating that the matter regarding admission to educational institutes was re-considered. It was decided that 10 per cent seats reserved for SBC would be filled up from general category students for the current academic session. Similarly, 500 unfilled reserved posts were required to be treated as general category posts.