THE police, aided in places by the ruling Awami League鈥檚 student wing Chhatra League, and ministers standing high-handed, in deeds and words, against the students and job-seekers who have been holding protests against quota in the recruitment for public services since July 1 is unfortunate. This is so as the demand of the protesters for recruitment in public services with no quota 鈥斅� based on merit, that is 鈥� is legitimate. While the police on July 11 attacked protests in some places and countered the protesters with their intimidating presence in other places, ministers, especially the minister for home affairs, with the police and Chhatra League leaders and activists joining in, have sounded warnings separately, saying that action would be taken if the protesters blocked roads any further to press home their demands. The police attacked the protesters and, even, fired blank shots and tear-gas shells to disperse the students. Such attacks have left 20 injured when the police attacked some 500 students of Comilla University who tried to gather at Kotbari in the afternoon on July 11 and at least 10 injured when the police charged at protesters with truncheons at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University in Dhaka. A University of Rajshahi student on the day in a written complaint to a proctor said that Chhatra League activists had beaten him for joining the protests and demanded justice.
The High Court, meanwhile on July 11 鈥� in the short verdict on the brief verdict pronounced on June 5, which ordered the reinstatement of the 30 per cent quota for the descendants of the freedom fighters 鈥� said that the government is at liberty to change, reduce or increase the ratio or percentage of quota, noting that the government needs to maintain quota for the descendants of freedom fighters, district, women, people with physical disabilities and ethnic minorities in the recruitment for the civil service. The court order has, thus, removed any bars on the government from reviewing, in terms of the ratio or percentage, quota for public service recruitment, keeping to the criteria that the verdict has mentioned. The verdict has also allowed the government to review the percentage by publishing an official notification as soon as possible, preferably in three months. But when the government on October 4, 2018 issued a circular, after a long spell of protests by the students and job-seekers, abolishing all of 56 per cent of the quota 鈥� 30 per cent for descendants of freedom fighters, 10 per cent for women, 10 per cent for people from under-represented districts, 5 per cent for ethnic minorities and 1 per cent for people with physical disabilities 鈥� the government so did only for Class 1 and 2 public servants and not for public employees below the two classes. The court verdict at hand 鈥� published a day after the Appellate Division ordered the maintenance of the status quo on the reinstatement of the quota system for four weeks 鈥� has, however, declared the government鈥檚 October 2018 circular illegal.
In such a situation, the government must, as the protesters also demand, rationally readjust the percentage or the ratio of the quota in the recruitment of public employees of all classes, not just Class 1 and 2.
