The Hemant Soren government in Jharkhand has begun sending recorded voice calls to job aspirants in the state, seeking their opinion whether the state should start recruitment process as per the old employment policy or wait till it’s able to come up with its own version aimed at “protecting the rights of tribals and locals”, according to people familiar with the development said.
The move comes following two back-to-back setbacks for the Soren government over its new employment and domicile policies.
On December 16 last year, the Jharkhand high court struck down the employment policy of 2021, which amended the Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission (JSSC) examination rules, making passing class 10th and 12th from a school in Jharkhand mandatory for job aspirants belonging to the general category.
In effect, the decision stalled examination process being conducted by the JSSC for thousands of vacancies across departments.
The Soren government, in power for three years, was presenting its employment policy as a step towards ensuring that only locals get class III &IV government jobs — a major political pitch of the ruling alliance comprising his party Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal.
Weeks later, on January 29 this year, Governor Ramesh Bais sent the “1932 Khatiyan Bill” back to the state government for reconsideration, describing it to be violative of Article 16 of the Constitution that provides freedom to employment and court rulings.
The Jharkhand government, at special session on November 11, 2022, had passed the “Jharkhand definition of local persons and for extending the consequential, social, cultural and other benefits to such local persons Bill, 2022”, popularly known as 1932 Khatiyan bill. As per the legislation, only those who have their, or names of their ancestors, in the Khatiyan (land records) of 1932 or before will be considered as a local inhabitant of Jharkhand and would be entitled for grade 3 and 4 government jobs in the state.
The new law would have come into effect only after the Centre included it in the ninth schedule of the Constitution, which is shielded from judicial review. The state government had sent the Bill to Raj Bhawan for its assent and forwarding it to the Centre for its inclusion in the ninth schedule.
In a short recorded voice message, being sent to job aspirants, chief minister Soren reminds them about the HC decision and seeks their opinion whether they want the government to start recruitment with the old policy or wait till the government is able to come up with a new policy after challenging the HC order.
“…My effort is to protect the rights of the adivasis and moolvasis while we simultaneously also provide adequate employment opportunities. I am also one amongst you and want to know your opinion in yes or no, whether we should start recruitment process as per the old policy,” the voice message says.
Officials, not willing to be named, said the message is being sent to around 8 lakh jobs aspirants, with data being sourced from the forms filled for various competitive exams due to be conducted by the state public service commission and the staff selection commission.
Devendra Mahto, a public service aspirant, who has also been leading the job aspirants on various platforms, questioned the rationale of the initiative.
“How do they expect the youth to give their opinion over such an issue in yes or no. The government’s legal department can only tell them whether they want to challenge the HC order or not. There was loophole in the previous policy as well. Fifty per cent of seats were in the open category. It was disadvantageous for the OBCs as it only gave 14 per cent quota to them,” said Mahto.
