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AdvertisementUttar Pradesh and Gujarat have completely abolished caste-based reservations in their respective states.
Officials from the Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat governments have confirmed that the claim is false. Both the states still follow the reservation policy.
Kochi , UPDATED: Jul 30, 2021 23:18 ISTWith only months left for Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, a post is circulating on social media with the claim that Uttar Pradesh has become the first Indian state to abolish caste-based reservations.
According to the post, UP has completely removed reservations for all government jobs and educational institutions in the state for the next 25 years.
One such post can be seen below.
We also found similar posts circulating since 2018 with the claim that the Gujarat High Court has abolished reservations in Gujarat.
The archived version of the posts can be seen here, and here.
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that the claim is false. Officials from Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat governments confirmed to us that no such decisions have been made to abolish reservations in their respective states.
If the Uttar Pradesh government or Gujarat High Court issued orders to abolish the reservation policy, it would have made headlines. However, we couldn’t find any such credible reports. Neither the Public Service Commission websites of Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat nor the website of Gujarat High court have any notification on this matter.
We then reached out to Brij Lal, Rajya Sabha MP, and head of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Commission of Uttar Pradesh. Rubbishing the claim, Brij Lal confirmed to us that no such order has been passed by the Uttar Pradesh government.
We also spoke to Dinesh Dasa, Chairman of Gujarat Public Service Commission, who said, “We have not received any such official order so far and the Gujarat government still follows the reservation policy for recruitment. The Gujarat High Court in 2015 had said the meritorious reserve category candidates who have scored more than cut-off marks for the general category and obtained age relaxation in the upper age limit, cannot be put in the general category list. There is no other court or government order as claimed in the post.”
We also checked the latest recruitment notifications and selection list for various government jobs on the Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat government websites. We found several recent notifications with posts divided according to different reserved categories on these sites.
For instance, on the site of Uttar Pradesh Police Recruitment and Promotion Board, we can see separate lists for candidates selected under OBC, SC, and ST categories for the post of Jail Warden, Mounted Police and Fireman.
Similarly, the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission in its advertisement dated July 16, 2021, for Staff Nurse Examination 2021 states that “The reservation for Scheduled Castes of U.P. / Scheduled Tribes of U.P. /Other Backward Class of U.P. / Economically weaker section candidates of U.P. shall be admissible in accordance with the provisions of relevant Govt. Rules.”
Given below is the screenshot from the Gujarat Public Service Commission advertisement from July 2021 inviting candidates for the post of Assistant Engineer, (Civil) Class-II under Gujarat Water Supply and Sewerage Board.
Here we can see the total 125 posts divided into different reservation categories.
We also checked the latest admission notification and selection list of multiple state-run universities in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat.
The maximum percentage of seats reserved for each category as per the University of Lucknow Undergraduate Admission Guidelines 2021-2022 can be seen below.
Gujarat University has also mentioned seats allotted for each category for PG Nursing -2021 in government institutions.
In 2019, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat had implemented a 10 per cent quota for the economically weaker section (EWS quota) among the upper castes in government jobs and educational institutions.
It is hence clear that the viral message is false. Until the time of filing this story, neither Uttar Pradesh nor Gujarat abolished the reservation policy.
