The Supreme Court Appellate Division did not hold a hearing on the state's plea seeking suspension of a High Court verdict that restored the 30 per cent quota for the freedom fighters' children for 9th to 13th grades of government jobs.
Chief Justice Obaidul Hassan also requested a regular appeal regarding the quota after receiving the full verdict from the High Court, and questioned whether a Supreme Court verdict could be altered through protests on the streets.
The High Court on June 5 had declared illegal a government circular issued in 2018 that abolished the 30 per cent quota system in recruiting first-class and second-class officers in government services.
Later, amid protests over the apparent restoration of the quota system in government jobs, the Chamber Judge of the Appellate Division on June 9 upheld the High Court order that had declared the cancellation of the freedom fighters quota in government jobs illegal.
Appellate Division Chamber Judge Justice M Enayetur Rahim passed the order, and fixed July 4 for hearing the petition in the full bench of the Appellate Division.
Senior Advocate Motahar Hossain Saju stood for the petition, while Attorney General AM Amin Uddin represented the state.
Earlier that day, the state counsel filed a petition seeking a stay order on the High Court order that had declared the government’s decision cancelling the freedom fighter quota for the 1st and 2nd class government officers illegal.
After extensive protests by a section of students and job aspirants, the government had surprisingly bowed to their demands and scrapped quotas in government jobs, issuing a circular to this effect on October 4, 2018.
After almost six years, on June 5, the High Court ordered that scrapping the 30 per cent reservation for freedom fighters (and their families or descendants) in government jobs was illegal.
An HC bench of Justice Md Nazrul Islam Talukder and Justice Khizir Hayat passed the order.
The government, through the circular dated October 4, 2018, had said recruitment in all government jobs in the 9th to 13th grades would be completely merit-based, abolishing quotas.
It overturned an executive order from November 1972 through which the government had introduced a 30 per cent quota for freedom fighters, and 10 per cent for women in the government, semi-government, and defence and nationalised institutions.
Various governments at various times tweaked the reservations, adding or removing communities targeted for upliftment on the basis of various reasons, from the political to developmental.
At the time of the abolition in 2018, about 56 per cent of government jobs ended up on the reserved list for candidates from various quotas.
The largest remained the 30 per cent for freedom fighters’ children and grandchildren, there was 10 per cent for women, which had been joined by 10 per cent for people of underdeveloped districts.
Five per cent of the jobs were reserved for members of indigenous communities, while 1 per cent also went to people with disabilities or the physically-challenged.
It is to be noted that the petition only concerns itself with the 30 per cent quota restoration for freedom fighter families.
However, in the course of arguing for this particular quota’s restoration, if it is found that the entire order of October 4, 2018 was legally unsound, it could result in the restoration of the quota system exactly as it was on October 3, 2018.
