Shillong, April 13: The Hynniewtrep Youth Council (HYC) on Thursday warned the state government of an MBOSE-like situation if it fails to address the issue concerning the implementation of the roster system.

“We want to remind the state government that if it fails to address this issue, I am afraid the MBoSE-like situation might happen in the state of Meghalaya. Therefore, we request the government to immediately solve this problem either through the Cabinet or State Assembly or an All-party meeting, we don’t care but what we care is that this issue should be solved once and for all,” HYC president Robertjune Kharjahrin told reporters after submitting a memorandum to the chief secretary DP Wahlang here for demanding that the roster should be implemented prospectively from 2022 onwards.

“The chief secretary has informed us that they will place this matter before the Cabinet and we hope that the cabinet will consider our point of view because we have seen that in social media and even in the streets there is a huge misunderstanding now between the Khasi Jaintia and Garo community,” he said while adding “We don’t want to see that will remain (the misunderstanding); we want to see that the government should step in now and solve this problem because the very purpose of having a government is to solve the problems, not to leave problems like this without solving them.”

“Now, if you see the statement, the minister will blame the Court and the Court says it is up to the government to fix the cut-off date; I mean the public will feel remediless. Let us hope the government will step in and solve this problem and the moment this problem is solved I think this issue will disappear and our youth both from Khasi-Jaintia and Garo community will start applying all the jobs,” he asserted.

The memorandum will also be submitted to all ministers and leaders of all political parties for their necessary intervention into the matter.

Kharjahrin informed that in the memorandum, the HYC has demanded that the cut-off date for implementation of the roster system should be prospectively from 2022 since the Meghalaya High Court had clearly stated these are policy matters best left to the executive and the legislature.

“This is also because the Supreme Court in so many of the cases had clearly stated that roster should be implemented prospectively not retrospectively. Therefore, we would like to see if the government decide either through a state legislative Assembly or an All-party meeting or even through the Cabinet because office memorandum (OM) can be changed at the Cabinet level itself,” he added.

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Backlog Vacancies 

He also informed that the Council also demanded that when it comes to backlog, there should not be any deviation from the policy.

“We have seen some departments now are starting to talk about filling up the backlog posts. What is necessary to understand is that as per the Meghalaya Job Reservation Policy, if there is any category who cannot fill up any posts, that category can be filled up by another category and in the next recruitment year there should be some adjustment but if in that recruitment year that particular category could not fill up that post lapsed, the policy says it so. So when it lapsed how can you now start talking about backlog? Ofcourse if there are one or three posts which do not lapse yet then you deserve to fill up but when the post is already lapsed. 1972-1973 posts till 2022; let us be frank they are already lapsed as so many recruitment years have come one after another. When it comes to backlog, we would like to see there should not be any deviation from the policy and there should not be any contradictory to the policy. When the posts are lapsed it is lapsed, you cannot talk about backlogs.”

“Thirdly, we have seen in the past two-three weeks that there is a recruitment agency both in East Khasi Hills and West Khasi Hills where they start giving roster separate for Khasi and Jaintia and Garo category but if we go as per the policy, it says that in district level category there will be 80% for Khasi-Jaintia Hills and 80% for Garo Hills, that is what we are following for the past 50 years. When we have a combined Khasi, Jaintia and Garo category at the district level, where is the question now of giving a particular post for Khasi and Jaintia and a particular post for Garo. So, this is illegal because the policy does not allow doing so,” Kharjahrin further added.

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