Ministerial panel on reservations to submit report within six months: Itoo

After the Jammu and Kashmir government faced backlash for stating in assembly that no timeframe was set for the cabinet sub-committee(CSC) examining reservations for filing its report, social welfare minister and committee member Sakina Itoo said the report will be submitted within the six-month time frame set by chief minister Omar Abdullah.

Itoo took to social media platform ‘X’ on Saturday evening after her earlier response in assembly regarding the timeline elicited criticism from various quarters including from Lone and National Conference leader Ruhullah Mehdi.

She accused Lone of politicising the issue of reservations while maintaining that they would file the report within six months

“The issue of the cabinet sub-committee on reservation is being politicised. If Sajad Lone was serious, he wouldn’t have been absent on the day his assembly question was to be raised. Had he been present, he would have received the answer in the supplementary—that while the initial order lacks a timeline, HCM (chief minister) has later set up the timeline of six months. The committee will submit its report within the set up timeline,” Itoo said.

Lone had asked whether a six-month timeline had been granted to the CSC for submitting the report to which the social welfare minister Itoo had responded as “…no specific timeline has been fixed for submitting the report”.

The new reservation policy was introduced by lieutenant governor-led administration, before the assembly elections early last year, had squeezed the general category to 40%, which form the majority of the population, and increased reservation for reserved categories to 60%.

After the elections, there were widespread demands for reversing the reservation policy in recruitment and admissions prompting the Jammu and Kashmir government led by Omar to form a three member cabinet-subcommittee on December 10. The three-member panel to review the policy, comprised education minister Sakina Itoo, forest minister Javed Ahmad Rana and science and technology minister Satish Sharma.

Following a protest on December 23, chief minister Omar had also assured to a group of students that the cabinet sub-committee would submit its review report within six months.

CM Omar also took to X stating that not citing the timeframe in the assembly response was an ‘oversight’ .