Experts opine that the government may face many legal hurdles in the days to come.
The Devendra Fadnavis-led government passed the bill for 16 % reservation to Marathas in jobs and education, but legal experts are concerned over the legal tenability in granting quota under the Socially and Educationally Backward Class (SEBC). Experts opine that the government may face many legal hurdles in the days to come.
A look at how the Supreme Court has viewed reservation in the context of backward classes or SEBC explains that the Court has always stressed on delinking caste-based reservation. However, under this category, there is only one Maratha caste which poses the question whether the intended reservation is class-based or caste-based.
Supreme Court lawyer Shekhar Jagtap said that the government has followed all the legal parameters. "The bill was tabled based on the report submitted by the State Backward Class Commission (SBCC)," he said.
"It took into account the social, education and economic factors of the Maratha community and thereafter concluded that the community needs to be uplifted as they are affected by the social and educational backwardness,'' Jagtap told DNA.
The Centre on March 4, 2014 had provided reservation for Jats under Other Backward Classes although the underlying determination of their backwardness was social, educational backwardness. Striking down the Central notification declaring Jats as backwards, a two-judge bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi (the present CJI ) and RF Nariman said, "Though caste may be a prominent and distinguishing factor for easy determination of backwardness of a social group, this Court has been routinely discouraging the identification of a group as backward solely on the basis of caste... New practices, methods and yardsticks have to be continuously evolved moving away from caste centric definition of backwardness."
The Jat reservation has striking similarity with the Maratha reservation issue. In the case of Jats, the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) submitted its report on February 26, 2014 declaring that Jats do not fulfil the criteria for being declared OBC. But this view was overruled by Union Cabinet which went on to issue the notification stating that NCBC report does not take into account "ground realities".
Lawyer Uday Warunjikar said that those supporting and opposing reservation are likely to get trapped in a legal tangle. ''Both the parties are likely to get frustrated. The process of legal matter in the high court and the Supreme Court is likely to consume substantial time. Looking at the present scenario of pendency of the matters at least 10 years will be required to settle the legal issues,'' he said. Advocate Kewal Uke said the government's decision to provide 16% quota to Maratha community is a question of law. ''Whether it will stand in the court is doubtful," he added.
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