Allahabad High Court quashes UP government orders notifying 18 OBCs as Scheduled Castes
Prayagraj(PTI): The Allahabad High Court on Wednesday quashed the Uttar Pradesh government orders which included 18 other backward classes (OBC) in the list of scheduled castes.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal and Justice JJ Munir allowed a public interest litigation that challenged the notifications issued in 2016 and 2019.
The PIL was filed by Dr. BR Ambedkar Granthalaya Evam Jan Kalyan, Gorakhpur and others.
The then Akhilesh Yadav government issued a notification on December 22, 2016, which provided for the inclusion of 18 OBC castes in the SC category.
However, the High Court put a ban on the issuance of SC certificates to these 18 OBC castes on January 24, 2017.
This was followed by another such notification by the Yogi Adityanath government on June 24, 2019 but the High Court intervened again and put a restriction on the process.
The SP government led by Mulayam Singh Yadav had issued a similar order in 2005 but it was stayed by the Allahabad High Court.
Two years later, the Mayawati government quashed the order but subsequently wrote to the central government extending her support for it.
Attacking the BJP on the HC decision, Samajwadi Party said that the reservation to the 18 most backward communities got cancelled due to ineffective action by the BJP government in court.
"SP President Shri Akhilesh Yadav had fulfilled his promise to include 18 most backward castes in the Scheduled Castes, which was rejected by the BJP's central government.
"Now the reservation has got cancelled due to poor handling of the case by the BJP's Yogi Adityanath government and due to lack of support from the BJP government at the Centre," the party said in a tweet in Hindi from its official Twitter handle.
"BJP also gave lollipops to these castes but did not keep its promise. This is a complete betrayal of those of the 18 most backward castes. Where are those BJP leaders who do politics of backward castes and the leaders of their allies? An answer is needed from the BJP government for its anti-backward step," he said.
The castes which the respective SP and Yogi governments intended to include in the SC category were - Majhwar, Kahar, Kashyap, Kevat, Mallah, Nishad, Kumhar, Prajapati, Dheevar, Bind, Bhar, Rajbhar, Dhiman, Batham, Turha, Godia, Manjhi and Machchhua.
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Air India Express crisis: 5 flights cancelled in Kolkata; efforts on to get back to normalcy
Kolkata (PTI): Air India Express on Friday cancelled five flights on four routes from Kolkata as the airline is making efforts to get back to normalcy following the cabin crew-related crisis, an official said.
The airline cancelled two flights between Kolkata and Hyderabad, one each to Chennai, Cochin and Ayodhya, an Air India Express spokesperson told PTI.
These were among the total of 120 flights, both domestic and international, that were cancelled across the country on Friday, even after the section of the cabin crew who had been on strike since Tuesday night had called it off on Thursday.
According to the spokesperson, besides the 120 cancellations, the airline operated 246 flights to various destinations of which 20 flights were operated by Air India and two by Vistara.
Sources in the airline said though the cabin crew started reporting back to work, putting them on flights was not possible immediately due to a lot of technicalities related to rostering and re-rostering.
Things are expected to be fully normal in one-and-a-half days.
Sources also said that some time will also be consumed in the medical check-up of the cabin crew who reported back to work, besides working out the entire duty roster.
Notably, the strike (sudden mass sick leave) by a section of the cabin crew since Tuesday night had resulted in cancellation of more than 170 flights was called off on Thursday evening.
The airline also had withdrawn the termination letters issued to 25 striking cabin crew.
The cabin crew had started reporting sick to protest against alleged mismanagement at the airline.
