The Madhya Pradesh High Court has summoned a top state government official to explain what steps he has taken to rectify a purportedly wrongly-translated Hindi list of dalits and tribals, negating their quota benefits.
A bench of justices S K Seth and H P Singh ordered the state's General Administration Department's secretary yesterday to appear before it personally on May 15 to explain why no contempt actions be begun against him for his alleged inaction over a 2015 order of the court to rectify the error in the list, if any.
"If the GAD secretary does not remain present on the said date (May 15), we will take a serious view of the matter," said the bench, seeking the official's appearance before it.
The court's stern warning came on a plea by state native Narendra Yadav, who said the government has not taken any action on the high court's direction dated April 21, 2015 to rectify the error.
Appearing for Yadav, his counsel Hemant Shrivastava told the bench that the high court had asked the state government to take corrective measures, if any, within six months, on Yadav's petition.
Yadav's plea had alleged that the reservation was being accorded to the dalits and tribals on the basis of a wrongly- translated list which is unconstitutional, illegal and totally contrary to the Government of India's list of 1979.
Advocate Shrivastava said though the high court had on April 21, 2015 asked the state government to rectify its wrongly-translated Hindi version (from English) of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes list of January 31, 1978, nothing has happened and the wrong list is still in vogue.
He said the incorrectly-translated and published Madhya Pradesh's GAD list of SC/ST has resulted in cancellation of genuine caste certificates issued by the competent authorities in the state.
This has caused loss of jobs and prosecution of several reserved category people of the state, he said.
Shrivastava said the Hindi version of 1976 SC/ST list was published in the extraordinary gazette of the Government of India, on November 29, 1979.
But MP GAD, in a hurry, had circulated its own wrongly translated list of SC/ST on January 31, 1978, he added.
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