Chandigarh:

The Punjab and Haryana High Friday held as unconstitutional the socioeconomic criteria prescribed by the Haryana government to grant additional marks to certain classes of candidates in state government jobs, said a counsel of one of the petitioners.

“The socioeconomic criteria has been held as unconstitutional and violative of Article 14, 15, 16. This was pronounced in the court today by a division bench,” said Sarthak Gupta, the counsel for one of the petitioners.

The practice of giving extra marks or bonus marks has been declared as unconstitutional, Gupta said.

The court order came on a bunch of petitions which had challenged the socioeconomic criteria. Petitions have been allowed in which this criteria had been challenged, he said.

He said a detailed order in the matter was yet to be released.

He said the lead petitioner in the matter was Arpit Gahlawat while some more had filed petitions later.

“There is a Haryana government policy for government recruitments for Group ‘C’, ‘D’ category jobs, under which they used to give some extra marks, weightage, that has been set aside.

“In some recruitments, it was five marks weightage, in some it was 20. That policy has been declared unconstitutional,” he said.

The Haryana government had introduced the socioeconomic criteria a few years back, aiming to provide additional marks to certain classes of candidates including those who don’t have any family member in government job, are state-domiciled and their family income does not exceed Rs 1.80 lakh per annum.

According to one of the petitioners, the said socioeconomic criteria is arbitrary, unconstitutional and illegal.

This is for the reasons, inter alia, that grant of additional marks to a certain class excluding the others is discriminatory and violative of Articles 14 and 16, the petitioner submitted.

The grant of additional marks to a certain class is in derogation of the settled law that for appointing persons to posts in public services through direct recruitment the criterion has to be pure merit, the petitioner had contended.

The criteria further discriminates on the basis of domicile and descent which are prohibited markers under Article 162 of Constitution, the petitioner had submitted.

There is no rationale for the grant of such additional marks to a certain class when reservations for the EWS as well as the socially backward classes such as Scheduled Castes SC and Backward Classes BC are already provided for, he had contended.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Police and paramilitary personnel stand guard at the polling station during the third phase of Lok Sabha Polls, in Etah on May 7, 2024.
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Chandigarh:

In a setback to the ruling BJP in Haryana amid the Lok Sabha elections, three Independent MLAs today announced that they have withdrawn their support to the Nayab Singh Saini-led government in the state.

The three MLAs – Sombir Sangwan, Randhir Gollen and Dharampal Gonder – also said that they have decided to extend support to the Congress during the elections.

They made the announcement at a press conference held in Rohtak in presence of former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and state Congress chief Udai Bhan.

“We are withdrawing support to the government. We are extending our support to the Congress,” Mr Gonder said.

“We have taken this decision on various issues including those related to farmers,” he said.

Speaking at the presser, Udai Bhan said, “The three Independent MLAs – Sombir Sangwan, Randhir Singh Gollen and Dharampal Gonder – have withdrawn their support to the BJP government and extended their support to the Congress.”

“I also want to say that present strength of (90-member) Haryana Assembly is 88, of which the BJP has 40 members. The BJP government earlier had support of JJP MLAs and Independents, but JJP had also withdrawn support and now Independents are also leaving.

“Nayab Singh Saini government is now a minority government. He should tender his resignation as he does not have right to stay even for a minute,” said Mr Bhan.

Now, the assembly polls should be held immediately, he said.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)