J&K Opposition slams Omar govt for not addressing concerns on reservation — ‘deliberate denial of justice’

Introduced in April last year by the Lieutenant Governor-led UT administration, the UT’s reservation policy amends Rule 4 of the J&K Reservation Act of 2005 to increase reservation for reserved category in the state to 67 per cent from 43 per cent, with 3 per cent horizontal reservation to ex-servicemen. This has meant that only 33 per cent was left for the general category of candidates – a change that has been vehemently opposed by various political parties as well as students.

Student groups from the ‘Open Merit’ or general category have been demanding a rationalisation of this reservation for over a year. The protests prompted Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s government to announce a subcommittee to look into the issue.

PDP leader Waheed Para said Thursday that the J&K government had promised to resolve the reservation issue through a subcommittee report.

“That deadline has passed, leaving thousands of students heartbroken and disillusioned, their trust in the system shattered and their futures put on hold,” Para said.

Terming the delay in addressing concerns of the protesting students “a deliberate denial of justice,” Para said: “These students have already endured violence, lockdowns, and lost opportunities. Now, as they seek fair representation and rationalised reservation, the government is pushing them further to the margins”.

The Pulwama MLA said that the ruling National Conference government has the power to “strike down” the BJP-imposed policy with a single administrative order, “but the party that promised to reverse BJP’s damage is now complicit in continuing it.”

Meanwhile, People’s Conference chairman Sajad Lone Thursday accused the government of being “clueless” on reservation and stated that they have “no intentions of doing anything.”

“Coming to this draft proposal. To the best of my knowledge, anything sent to the cabinet should be vetted by the law department. It is not the other way round. You can’t send something to the cabinet which is outside the domain of law. It looks like another round of time-wasting tactics,” Lone said.
The protests were among the first challenges faced by the elected government in J&K. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had met with students protesting outside his residence in December 2024.

In April, the government-appointed cabinet subcommittee began deliberations with student groups and in the first week of June, the minister concerned Sakeena Itoo announced that the subcommittee had compiled its report and it would be presented before the UT cabinet. However, after the cabinet met Thursday, the findings of the report were not made public and sent to the law department for review.

The reservation policy has also been challenged in the High Court of J&K and Ladakh.