Tribals denied jobs, officials cite SC diktat

Adilabad: The Supreme Court order scrapping the Government Order (GO) 3, which guaranteed 100 per cent reservation in teacher jobs to local Adivasis in the Agency areas, is proving costly for tribals with the officials implementing the judgment in other departments in Telangana state.

Non-tribals are mounting pressure on the state government and officials to implement the Supreme Court judgment in filling the posts in all government departments. The GO 3 was being implemented in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh state till the Supreme Court judgment came out.    

The panchayat raj, police and forest departments are filling up many posts with non-tribals as per the judgment and now officials have allotted panchayat secretary posts also to non-tribals.

Adivasis have been demanding that the state government bring out an ordinance or an Act by guaranteeing 100 per cent jobs to local Adivasis as per GO 3 as the tribals will suffer a lot in terms of lost job opportunities.

Various tribal organisations and the state government have filed a review petition in the Supreme Court on its previous judgment on GO 3. The Adivasi government teachers allege that the officials tried to follow the judgment even in the promotions to teachers recently. They demanded that the state government issue orders not to implement the judgment since the review petition is pending in the Supreme Court.

Asifabad MLA Athram Sakku said it was unfortunate that the Supreme Court judgment on GO 3 was being implemented in various departments while filling jobs though the GO was related only to teachers’ jobs. He asked the officials to stop recruiting candidates in the panchayat raj department as per the GO No 3 during the zilla parishad meeting recently.

However, district collector Sikta Patnaik clarified that they were recruiting panchayat secretary posts as per the Supreme Court judgment.

Boath MLA Rathod Bapurao also appealed to the district panchayat officer to stop recruiting for some time since the tribals are losing their opportunities. Both the TRS MLAs represented the matter to collector Sikta Patnaik.