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| HC dismisses petition challenging reservation of offices of chairpersons | | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Feb 25: Justice Rajnesh Oswal dismissed the petition seeking quashment of District Development Council (Reservation of Offices of Chairpersons) Rules, 2021 to the extent of Rule 4(1) providing for allotment of seats to different District Development Councils on the basis of total population of Schedule Castes and Schedule Tribes in such District Development Councils in descending order and Rule 4 (2) whereby the allocation of seats of Chairperson to be reserved for women shall be made on three point roaster system after arranging then alphabetically.
While dismissing the petition filed by Nadeem Sharief and others, Justice Rajnesh Oswal after hearing Sr. Advocate Gagan Basotra with Adv Navdeep Kour for the petitioners whereas Sr. AAG HA Siddqui and AAG Aseem Sawhney represented the UT of J&K, observed that after perusal of rule 108-A would reveal that it provides for delimitation of constituencies for the purpose of election to District Development Councils and SO 330 dated 24-10-2020 inserted the sub-rules (supra) that provided for the reservation to the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe and Women for the purpose of election to the District Development Councils except sub-rule(3F) that provided, that the roaster for women as prescribed in rule 3C and 3D shall also be applicable to elections to the Chairpersons of District Development Councils.
Justice Oswal further observed that so the only issue that remains for consideration of this Court is with regard to the allotment/reservation of the seats for Schedule Tribes and Schedule Caste category to the Chairman/Chairperson of the District Development Council. The precise case of the petitioners is that the Rule 4(1) of S.O. 13 dated 11.01.2021 issued by the respondents is contrary to the Rule 3(B) of the S.O. 330 dated 24.10.2020 as Rule 3(B) provides for that number of seats reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes as provided under Rule 3(A) shall be reserved on the basis of proportion of population of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes vis-a-vis total population of the constituency whereas Rule 4(1) reveals that number of seats of Chairpersons to be reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes as provided in Rule 2 shall be on the basis of the population of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in each District Development Councils meaning thereby that the District Development Council having largest population of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes shall be reserved for the candidate belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes category as the case may be. This issue too is without any legal basis because as already stated that the Rule-108-A of CHAPTER VIII-A to which sub-rules (3A) (3B) (3C) (3D) (3E) and (3F) have been appended/added/inserted deals with the delimitation of constituencies of a District Development Council and election of members of District Development Councils. Chapter VIII-B deals with the election of Chairperson and Vice-Chairperson and the S.O 13 dated 11.01.2021 provides for reservation to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Women to the offices of Chairpersons of the District Development Councils. So both S.O.330 of 24.10.2020 and S.O. 13 of 11.01.2021 operate in different fields because S.O 330 of 24.10.2020 deals with the election/reservation of seats for SCs, STs and Women for members of District Development Councils and S.O. 13 of 11.01.2021 deals with the election/reservation for SCs, STs and Women for offices of Chairpersons of District Development Councils.
With these observations High Court found that the petition has no merit and dismissed the same. JNF |
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