The Maharashtra government is planning to appeal in the supreme court against a Bombay high court bench ruling that jobs should be given to project affected people (PAPs) on the basis of merit and candidates will have to appear for competitive exams.

A recent order of the Aurangabad bench of the high court had asked the state government to conduct competitive exams for all those project affected people who were entitled for jobs, minister of state for revenue Prakash Solanke informed the legislative council here on Tuesday.

He was replying to a question by Parshuram Uparkar (Shiv Sena) on delay in fulfilling job promises for PAPs in Tilari dam project in Sindhudurg district.

Vinod Tawde (BJP) said the order would have a major repercussions on all the on-going projects in the state, including in finalising rehabilitation package for the Jaitapur nuclear project.

Diwakar Raote (Shiv Sena) sought a clarification from the government on the issue alleging chief minister Prithviraj Chavan was misleading the people of Jaitapur on providing jobs.

In the reply, Solanke said that the government would appeal against the order in the supreme court.