PIL questions Delhi government’s generosity to Rohith’s brother

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday posted for 17 May a PIL against Delhi government decision to offer a job on compassionate grounds to the brother of Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula, who had committed suicide in January.

A division bench of Chief Justice G. Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath posted for 17 May the hearing of petition seeking quashing of government decision on the ground that it’s “illegal, arbitrary, motivated, discriminatory, unjustifiable and unfair exercise of discretion without any mandate of law, statute, policy and guidelines”.

The plea questioned the wisdom of the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in giving a clerical job to Raja Vemula, the brother of Hyderabad University research scholar Rohith Vemula.

Rohith’s suicide on 17 January caused a prolonged political uproar and accusations against the BJP-led central government of nurturing systemic bias against Dalit communities.

The PIL filed by advocate Awadh Kaushik said the student “died at Hyderabad University by committing suicide, having no connection with Delhi and admittedly, he was not a government servant in Delhi and thus, the impugned decision is nothing but purely politically motivated, biased and illegal and thus the same cannot be allowed to sustain”.

The case is neither of a special category nor any kind of “martyrdom or sacrificing the life for any good cause but it is a simple case of suicide by the deceased at Hyderabad and thus there is no rationality or public welfare in the AAP government decision,” said the plea.

The plea challenged the appointment process, saying that if allowed to proceed the decision of the Delhi Cabinet will set a wrong precedent.

The petition said that the government’s decision is a “clear violation of law of the land and public policy thereby infringing the fundamental rights of the public at large in general and Delhi’s youth in particular who are trying to get the job on their own merits but are deprived by the Delhi government” because of the decision.