Rajasthan brings Jats of Bharatpur, Dholpur districts under OBC category

Yash Goyal

Jaipur, August 23

The Rajasthan government on Wednesday brought back Jats of Bharatpur and Dholpur districts, who were deprived of the quota benefits by the high court and Supreme Court in 2015, into the Other Backward Class (OBC) category.

Based on a fresh recommendation report of the OBC commission headed by chairman Jitendra Goyal and member secretary Hari Kumar Godara on the guidelines of the high court verdict, the state government has included Jats of the two districts in the OBC category which is having 21 per cent quota along with other castes, Arun Chaturvedi, Rajasthan Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment, told reporters here. 

The SJE department has issued a notification to this effect immediately, Chaturvedi said.

In 2015, the Rajasthan High Court has quashed a state government order issued in 1999 granting reservation to Jats in Dholpur and Bharatpur districts, and ordered a review of the status of all communities under OBC to be conducted over the next four months.

Earlier in March 2015, the Supreme Court had scrapped reservation for Jats in nine states, including Bharatpur and Dholpur districts of Rajasthan, on the findings of an OBC panel that Jat is not a backward class in these districts.

Hailing the Vasundhara Raje government's decision, Congress MLA Vishwendra Singh who had led the ‘rail roko’ agitation in June told The Tribune that it will set a good precedent for other states’ Jats who were deprived of their legitimate quota by the Supreme Court.

Recently, the Raje government had also announced 5 per cent separate quota to five communities, including Gurjars in the OBC category, by raising the bar from 49 per cent to 54 per cent. An ordinance would be issued to this effect later. A fresh amendment would be brought in the monsoon session of state assembly likely to be held in October.