RANCHI: Governor CP Radhakrishnan has returned the bill for review, seeking an increase in the reservation for government jobs and education institutions up to 77 per cent. He is said to have returned the bill on the basis of a legal opinion from the attorney general of India.
Notably, the state government got the bill passed in haste in November last year, allegedly for political gains. The bill seeks to increase the Other Backward Class (OBC) quota from 14% to 27% and that of Schedule Tribes (ST) to 28% from 26% and Scheduled Castes (SC) to 12% from 10%.
With the inclusion of the 10% reservation for the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS), the total reservation in state jobs would go up to 77%. As per sources, the Attorney General said the bill was contrary to the orders of the Supreme Court. He stated that the SC in the Indira Sawhney case fixed the caste reservation limit at 50 per cent.