Former AP Tribal Welfare Commissioner and former Secretary to the Central Government EAS Sharma has welcomed Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu’s announcement that a special law will be introduced to provide 100 percent reservation to tribals in teaching posts in tribal areas and scheduled villages in the state.
In a letter to the Chief Minister, he said that he believes that this decision is good for the welfare of the tribals in his opinion. He said that the NT Rama Rao government had issued GO MS 275 on November 2, 1986 regarding the reservation of teaching posts. However, he deplored that some non-tribals have approached the High Court and the Administrative Tribunal against it.
He said that the government issued GOMS 3 on January 10, 2000 with the intention of protecting tribal reservations in view of the orders of the court and tribunals. But, the non-tribals again approached the High Court and later the Supreme Court against those orders.
He recalled that the Supreme Court had ruled on April 22, 2020 that the GOMS 3 issued by the state was against Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution and that under no circumstances should the 50 percent limit of reservations be violated. Hower, Sarma believes that the court would not have given such a verdict if the state government had argued in detail the importance of protecting the special rights of the tribals through the Fifth Schedule.
He said that after the Supreme Court verdict, he had appealed to the Chief Ministers of the Telugu states to immediately introduce special laws under the fifth paragraph of the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution and provide legal protection for 100 percent reservations for local tribals in the scheduled areas.
He said that the next two Telugu states filed revision petitions in the Supreme Court. But the court rejected the revision petitions because they did not take proper action. He said that the then government lawyers had prepared Musa Yida laws under Paragraph 5(2) of the Fifth Schedule. He said that the AP Advocate General also contacted him in that context. But, Sarma deplored that despite his repeated appeals to the two state governments, they did not move forward in that direction for some reason.
