Over 70 Years of
Independence:
The nation travels from being Republic
of India to new identity of Sultanate
of Quota.
The
news item dated 7th March 2019 in Times of India, Mumbai was quite disturbing.
“With EWS, Maratha
quotas, reservation in FYJCs set to hit 103%.”
Open
category students could be left with no seats in junior colleges that are attached
to schools, with the state having issued notifications for two new quotas—16%
for Marathas and 10% for economically weaker sections (EWS) in the general
category.
The
share of reserved seats in such colleges would hit 103% as their current
reservation is 77%— 20% for in-house students, over and above the 52% so far
for reservations (SC, ST, OBC, NT, etc) and 5% for management quota.
Some
junior colleges with attached schools are Sathaye, Dahanukar and Bhavan’s, in
the suburbs. Under the online admission process for FYJC, 330 of the 810 junior
colleges have attached schools. Of these, the minority ones will remain unaffected
by the two additional quotas.
As
if these quotas were not sufficient, a school education official as per the
news item has said they are considering reducing the in-house quota to 10% so
that at least 7% of seats will be left for open category students. This
proposed magnanimity towards open category will leave 4% seats (103% – 7%) for
open category.
The
quotas thus start disturbing the education system right from 11th standard. As
one goes higher, the situation gets worst.
Take
the case of Medical PG admissions. In view of these variety of quotas, the
seats available for open category students are only 5%. As if this 5%
availability was too large for open category, the Maharashtra Government is
toying with the idea of introducing another quota of 10% for those who would
work in rural areas for about 12 years including the residenceship years of 3
years.
The
idea behind this new quota is to ensure that rural areas get the treatment by
best doctors. The idiots in Mantralaya and Government don’t realize that even
the best doctor in the world cannot treat any patient in rural health centers
or hospitals for want of required infrastructure. Instead of creating
infrastructure in rural hospitals, the bureaucrats are creating another class
of quota. If these quota become reality, the overall quota would reach 105% for
PG Medical education. And the merit would have to say goodbye to this Nation.
Education
is available in this country not on the basis of merit but on the basis of which
category of quota one fits in. It is a sorry state of affairs.
People
have filed Writ Petition challenging the quotas. But can one have any
expectation from the Judiciary? The answer to this would be an emphatic “NO” when
the Judiciary itself is interested in promoting the reservations even in the
appointment of judicial appointments.
Ease norms for SC/STs
to be judges – says Supreme Court
Just
sometime back, Kerala High Court could not find any appointee from SC/ST
category because of extremely poor marks scored by these candidates.
Over
2,700 candidates had competed for 45 posts of judicial officer and only 31
general category candidates could be selected. The bench of CJI Gogoi and
Justices L N Rao and Sanjiv Khanna said that in such situations, HCs should
relax the minimum percentage of marks, maybe from 35% to 30% depending on the
situation at hand. “It is surprising that in a state like Kerala you can’t find
45 candidates for judicial officers’ posts,” SC Bench headed by CJI Ranjan
Gogoi said.
Talking
of the general scenario where representation of SCs, STs and other backward
classes in services was below the level proportionate to their population, the
CJI said, “For reserved category, HCs can relax minimum percentage of
qualifying marks to give them representation in judiciary. Otherwise, reserved
category candidates can never pass the examination and the posts earmarked for
them will always remain vacant.”
The CJI said minimum marks were being relaxed for reserved category candidates in examinations for recruitment in other services and HCs could examine this aspect to take appropriate steps. Data received by the law ministry from HCs last year showed that SCs comprised less than 14% of judges in the subordinate judiciary and STs about 12%.
The
percentage of posts of judicial officers for SCs was less than their share of
the population, which stands at 16.6% according to the 2011 Census. Tribal
representation is higher than their population, which is 8.6% of India’s total
headcount. Women judicial officers constituted 28% of judges in the subordinate
judiciary.
What
a statistic – so much SC/ST, so much women, so much of this, so much of that
category..!!!. No statistics is available on number of meritorious judges. This
is really sickening.
Thus
when Judiciary itself is inclined to promote reservation rather than merits in
appointment of judges in lower judiciary, some of whom may eventually find a
place in some High Court, and when each Indian is clamoring to declare
himself/herself as backward, and when the political parties are competing with
each other in expanding the scope of reservations by inventing new criteria day
in day out, the future of MERIT in India
is as bleak as future of PEACE in Pakistan.
