Maratha quota: Petition filed in SC against high court decision

A special leave petition (SLP) was filed on Friday in the Supreme Court (SC) by one of the early petitioners who had challenged the quota for the Maratha community in 2014.

The petitioner has sought leave to appeal against the June 27 judgment of the Bombay high court (HC), which had upheld the socially and educationally backward classes (SEBC) category enacted by the state in 2018 to give reservations to the Marathas.

The SLP was filed by Youth for Equality president Dr Kaushal Mishra through advocate Sanjeet Shukla. The petitioner said the judgment is unconstitutional and against the 50% cap prescribed by the Apex Court and the decision to grant reservation to the Maratha community is due to political pressure. The petitioner further claimed that the decision violates the fundamental rights of others.

It stated that the state not only identified Marathas as a backward community but had also given them reservation without referring the decision to the President of India, the Parliament or the National Backward Classes Commission.

The SLP further points that the HC in its previous order of 2015 had said, “Supreme Court has laid down as a Constitutional mandate that ‘the State will have to see that its reservation provision does not lead to excessiveness so as to breach the ceiling limit of 50%’.” But the state had breached the cap and raised reservations to 65% in Maharashtra by giving reservation to Marathas.

The SLP also refers to the Gaikwad Commission report and says that its findings are not reliable, as the surveys did not take into account the entire population of the state. It stated that if the commission’s report reveals that 85% of the population is backward, then giving reservation only to the Maratha community violated the rights of other backward classes.

According to Shukla, the SLP will be mentioned on Monday and the date of hearing will be decided accordingly.