Bombay HC reserves order on pleas for, against Maratha quota

Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Tuesday reserved order on the petitions filed, challenging and in favour of the 16 per cent reservation granted to the Maratha community in jobs and education in Maharashtra. If anyone wants to say anything in this matter now, they will have to give written submissions.  

On Tuesday, advocate Pradeep Sancheti along with advocate Sanjeet Shukla on behalf of petitioner Youth for Equality, a NGO which is against any kind of reservation to anybody, filed rejoinders before a division bench of Justice Ranjit More and Justice Bharati Dangre, which heard the petitions on the issue of Maratha reservation.

 In the rejoinders, it is alleged that the survey relied upon by the government to grant reservation to the Maratha community cannot be considered as quantifiable data as it was conducted through a politically-connected org-anisation which lacked expertise.

The rejoinders also claimed that the wrong sample, caste-wise and also in the urban-rural mix, was reflected in the survey and Mumbai had been left out of it.

According to the rejoinders, if this data and analysis were taken for any consideration, then all communities in Maharashtra would qualify as backward.  

The bench commenced day-to-day hearing on the Maratha reservation issue since February 6, 2019.

The petitions in favour of and against Maratha reservation were filed after the state Legislature on November 30, 2018, passed a bill affording 16 per cent quota to the Marathas in government jobs and educational inst-itutes.

With the Maratha quota, the total reservation in jobs and education in Maharashtra under various heads stands at 68 per cent, way above the Supreme Court-fixed (SC) limit.