Maratha reservation: State to submit status report by August 14

Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Friday granted time till August 14 to the Maharashtra government, to show what progress had been made by the judicial commission constituted last year to study socio-economic backwardness of the Maratha community.

The court asked the government to produce data collected till July 31 in connection with the economic condition of Marathas living in the state at the next hearing.

The state had sought time till September to show the progress of the commission however the court granted time till July and posted the matter for hearing on August 14. During the hearing, senior counsel Ravi Kadam, on behalf of the state, requested the division bench of Justice Ranjit More and Justice Anuja Prabhudessai to grant time till September to collect precise, quantifiable data on the socio-economic condition of the Marathas.

The bench however expressed its displeasure over the request saying that even after taking such a long time, the government was seeking further time to collect data. When the bench asked advocate Kadam what progress had been made and what could be done to speed up the process, advocate Kadam infor-med the court that the process of collecting data was still underway.

The court was informed that five social organisations were assigned the task of collecting data because the data was huge.

Advocate Kadam also said that when the Maratha Reservation Bill was passed in 2014, there was no precise, quantifiable data and thus, the case was referred to the Maharashtra State Commission. According to him, the commission needed to get the entire data and also the data from the Union government, and only then would it be able to decide whether Marathas were really backward or not and how much reservation was required.