KOTTAYAM: Breaking its silence on the row over the government’s decision to implement 10 per cent reservation for financially backward sections of forward communities in Devaswom recruitment, the Nair Service Society has said there were no legal hurdles in implementing the decision.
In an editorial published in the latest edition of its mouthpiece, ‘Service’, NSS also demanded the state government to enforce the decision sooner than later taking into account the realities.
The article stated as per Article 16 of the Constitution, posts and recruitment can be reserved for backward communities only in the institutions which come under the definition of the state. “However, Devaswom Boards are autonomous bodies, which do not come under the definition of the state.
The employees in Devaswom Boards are not government servants. And their salary and other benefits are being borne by the Devaswom Boards as well. Hence, reservation cannot be implemented in Devaswom Boards as per the Constitution,” the article stated.
According to the NSS, Devaswom Board itself recruited its employees since its inception and there was no reservation quota till the previous year. “Recruitment has been made as per reservation through Devaswom Recruitment Boards only in 2017,” it said.NSS general secretary G Sukumaran Nair said the NSS was forced to respond when there was an inordinate delay in implementing the decision.
“The government took a historic decision to provide 10 per cent reservation for backward sections of forward communities in Devaswom Board jobs. However, even the Law Department was misleading the government with faulty legal opinion on the matter. The government should not fall for such misleading campaigns and the decision must be implemented at the earliest,” he said.