Bombay HC stays sacking of state employees

Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Friday stayed the process of sacking 2,000 state employees till December 5. The HC ordered the stay in a petition where 15 state employees recruited five years ago in the open category were served notice to leave their jobs because the state wanted to replace them with Maratha candidates.

The HC also directed the state not to recruit any candidate under the SEBC category till the next hearing.

A division bench of Justice Ranjit More and Justice M.S. Karnik was hearing the petition filed by Rekha Mandavkar and 15 other state employees. At last hearing, the court had directed the advocate general to remain present to address the issue.

According to the petition, the state government in 2014 advertised to fill the posts of class 1 civil engineering assistant, female health workers and male health workers under the SEBC.

But the said posts were not filled under the SEBC category because on April 7, 2015, the HC stayed Maratha reservation in government jobs and education.

After the HC order, the state called other caste candidates and selected them via procedure and issued appointment letters to them. The appointment letters specifically mentioned that the appointments would be subject to the outcome of the SEBC petition pending before the HC.

The petitioners said that several pleas were filed in 2017-18 and the court gave interim protection to the petitioners and saved their jobs. The petitioners also said that no technical break was given to them and they had been working since 2014.

The petition stated that on July 11, 2019, the General Administration Department Government of Maharashtra issued a Government Resolution to discontinue the applicants’ services immediately on the basis of the high court order in favour of Maratha quota.