Former Madhya Pradesh High Court judge (Retired) Mool Chand Garg has been appointed as chairman of the Expert Committee constituted by the Meghalaya State government for reviewing the State Reservation Policy.
The names of the five members of the Expert Committee were approved by the Meghalaya State Cabinet chaired by Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Friday.
Former Judge of Allahabad High Court Justice (Retired) Dr Satish Chandra was also appointed as an expert member in Constitutional law. Justice Chandra is also a former president of the Custom, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal.
The other three expert members are Prof DV Kumar from the Department of Sociology, NEHU, Shillong as an expert member in Sociology, Prof Chander Shekhar from Department of Fertility and Social Demography, Indian Institute of Population Sciences (deemed to be University), Mumbai as an expert member in population studies and Prof Subhadip Mukherjee, Assistant Professor of Economics and Public Policy in IIM, Shillong as expert member in Economics.
Meghalaya Law Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh said that the terms of reference of the Expert Committee will be to study the current reservation policy and recommend modifications, if necessary and to undertake wide-ranging consultations with all stakeholders and visit various locations of the State to solicit the views of all stakeholders.
“The timeframe to be given to this committee will be 12 months to complete its task,” said.
Lyngdoh said, “Once you announce the constitution of this committee then all political parties will have to step up and NGOs, civil society and everybody will be called by the expert committee. Their terms of reference are very clear. They will look at these suggestions, views, and opinions of stakeholders across the state and accordingly submit these suggestions and views to the government of Meghalaya for further action.”
She, however, said that the government has nothing to say to people, who want to participate in giving their views and suggestions to the expert committee.
Further, the minister also announced that the committee of political parties on reservation policy will cease to operate following the constitution of the expert committee.
“The political committee set up for the purpose was inadequate in terms of expertise. We have said we are not experts on this matter so we are bringing in the experts so yes that will cease to operate,” she said.
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