Maharashtra govt to make a strong case for Maratha reservation in Bombay HC
Maharashtra govt affidavit would be supported by solid documentary evidence to 'prove' that a large section of the Maratha caste population was economically backward and deserved quota
Mumbai: The Maharashtra government has decided to make a strong case for Maratha reservation before the Bombay high court at its next hearing on 13 October. The HC is hearing a bunch of petitions both for and against reservations for Marathas in government-run and aided educational institutions and jobs.
An all-party steering committee formed by Maharashtra government on the issue of Maratha reservation took this decision at its meeting on Wednesday. The committee, headed by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis decided to file an affidavit in the Bombay HC expressing the state’s commitment to granting reservation to Marathas.
The affidavit would be supported by solid documentary evidence to “prove" to the HC that a large section of the Maratha caste population was economically backward and deserved quota on economic grounds, said a law department official who attended the meeting.
Fadnavis had called the meeting at his official residence Varsha on Wednesday morning to discuss the issue of Maratha unrest and the political establishment’s response. Congress leader and leader of the opposition in the legislative assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar, NCP leader Dhananjay Munde, and other opposition leaders attended the meeting. Maratha ministers from the BJP also attended the meeting.
A BJP minister who attended the meeting said requesting anonymity that the government had collected “more than 1,200 pieces of evidence from a number of sources" to strengthen its case before the HC. “We have also deployed the best legal help available to argue the case," the minister said. Some of these evidences date back to the time Shivaji Maharaj, the great Maratha king in the seventeenth century, the minister added.
Ever since 9 August, Maratha organisations have been holding massive protest marches all over Maharashtra to demand reservation, justice for a Maratha teenage girl who was raped and murdered allegedly by three Dalit men on July 13 in Ahmadnagar district, and amendments to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act which the Marathas claim is being misused to implicate them in fake cases. The demand for reservations was first made in the mid-1980s but it gained momentum only in early 2013. In 2014, the then Congress NCP government issued an ordinance to give 16% quota to the Marathas and 5% to Muslims. The BJP-Shiv Sena government turned this ordinance into an act in December 2014. But in April 2015, the Bombay HC stayed the Act in response to a petition which challenged the decision. The HC also said that no substantial evidence was produced by the state to prove that the Marathas were economically backward.
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