NEW DELHI: The Supreme Courtroom on Thursday pulled up the Himachal Pradesh authorities for making a kabbadi participant, a gold medalist on the 2014 Asian Video games, run from pillar to publish, and rejected the state’s attraction in opposition to the aid granted to Pooja Thakur by the excessive courtroom.
“Is that this your means of encouraging sportspersons? Any person who has received a gold medal within the Asian Video games, you make her run from pillar to publish for seven years. Is that this the strategy of the state whereas coping with sportspersons,” a bench of justices Abhay S Oka and Augustine George Masih instructed the state authorities.
Pooja Thakur utilized for the job as a deputy superintendent of police (DSP), a Class 1 publish, in 2015 underneath the three% reservation coverage for distinguished sportspersons. However her case was ignored whereas different sportspersons, together with a male kabaddi participant, a girl cricketer and a shooter had been recruited underneath the identical quota. SShe was lastly appointed in December 2020 as an excise and taxation officer. Thakur accepted the provide however insisted that she ought to be granted seniority from July 2015 when she filed her software.
A single bench of the Himachal Pradesh excessive courtroom accepted her plea in April 2023 however the state challenged the ruling earlier than a division bench. The excessive courtroom once more dominated in her favour and gave the state authorities 4 months to present her the seniority and different advantages from 2015. The excessive courtroom additionally famous that the state cupboard thought of the circumstances of different sportspersons however not Pooja Thakur “for undisclosed causes”.
The state authorities filed a particular go away petition within the Supreme Courtroom in opposition to this excessive courtroom ruling.
“Your chief minister ought to have adopted a sensible strategy… Let some sportspersons aside from cricketers get some advantages. This isn’t a match case to intrude underneath Article 136,” the highest courtroom instructed the Himachal Pradesh advocate common Anup Kumar Rattan on Thursday. Article 136 grants discretion to the Supreme Courtroom to entertain an attraction in opposition to a judgment or order handed by any courtroom or tribunal within the nation.
Rattan had argued that Thakur couldn’t declare the seniority advantages for 2015-2020 since she hadn’t labored throughout this length and had joined solely in 2020.
However there have been no clear solutions why the state had stored her software pending since 2015 however appointed others as DSP, some extent that the excessive courtroom had additionally raised.
Kabbadi participant and Arjuna awardee Ajay Thakur was appointed DSP in 2017, lady cricket wicket-keeper Shushma Verma in April 2018 for her efficiency within the ICC Ladies’s World Cup and shooter VIjay Kumar in 2019.
The state authorities had tried to purpose within the excessive courtroom that there was no publish of DSP left to accommodate Thakur however the courtroom determined that simply because she was initially granted appointment as an Inspector wouldn’t are available the way in which of counting her seniority because the reservation coverage of Could 28, 1999 supplied for 3% reservation in opposition to Class I and Class II posts to sportspersons.
