The Chhattisgarh High Court in Bilaspur on Monday issued a notice to the Raj Bhavan seeking its reply on a writ petition filed by the state government before the high court against the Union of India and secretary in Governor Secretariat for allegedly stalling the Chhattisgarh Public Service (Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes Reservation) Amendment Bill, 2022. The bill which was passed on December 2 last year and gives 76 per cent reservation in government jobs and educational institutions is pending before Governor Anusuiya Uikey, who refused to give her assent to it. “The high court has asked the governor to file a reply by February 24 which is the next date in the petition. The notice is served to the secretary in the office of Raj Bhavan,” a senior government official said. The petition was filed by the state government on January 30 this year. On December 2, the bill was passed by the Chhattisgarh Legislative Assembly and since then it has been pending with the governor who refused to give her assent, asking the Bhupesh Baghel government to answer 10 of her questions. The petition describes governor Uikey’s stand on the bills as “illegal, arbitrary, and contrary to the spirit of the Constitution” and says she is using her “authority whimsically” and the “inaction is politically motivated”. Baghel has publicly criticised Uikey several times calling Raj Bhavan “BJP’s political arena” for not passing the bill. On the other hand, Uikey had said she never received the quantifiable data based on which the reservation bills were passed. Raj Bhavan sources also said that another petition on the 2012 reservation bill from Chhattisgarh (which was rejected by the high court in September 2022) is pending before the Supreme Court and the apex court has asked all parties to file their reply by March 4. “The governor was waiting for the Supreme Court to decide on the issue,” a Raj Bhavan source said.
