SC sets aside law on Maratha reservation
Reservation breaching the 50% limit will create a society based on “caste rule”, held the Supreme Court on Wednesday as it quashed a 2018 Maharashtra law providing quotas for Marathas in jobs and education while also refusing to consider scrapping the 50% ceiling.
The top court also dealt a severe blow to the authority of state governments in identifying backward classes by ruling that after the 2018 amendment in the Constitution, only the central government could notify socially and educationally backward classes (SEBCS).
The interpretation of the 102nd constitutional amendment -- which related to giving constitutional status to the National Commission of Backward Classes -- may impinge on the power of states to provide reservation benefits after separately identifying backward classes, especially at a time when several dominant communities – such as Jats, Patels and Gujjars – are demanding separate quotas.
The judgment on a clutch of petitions was delivered by a fivejudge bench -- comprising justices Ashok Bhushan, L Nageswara Rao, S Abdul Nazeer, Hemant Gupta and S Ravindra Bhat -- which scrapped the validity of the Maratha quota law that breached the 50% limit.
While all five judges were unanimous in declaring Maratha quota law “unsustainable” and in affirming that the 50% ceiling on total reservation was inviolable, the ruling on depriving states of the power to identify SEBCS came by a majority of 3-2. Justices Bhushan and Nazeer said that states could still have their own list of SEBCS -- a view overruled by the majority.
Underlining that the 50% upper limit as fixed by a ninejudge bench in the Indra Sawhney case (famously known as the Mandal Commission case) in 1992 follows principles of reasonability and equality, the bench unanimously said that “to change the 50% limit is to have a society which is not founded on equality but based on caste rule”.
“If the reservation goes above 50% limit, which is a reasonable, it will be slippery slope, the political pressure, make it hardly to reduce the same. The cap on percentage is to achieve principle of equality and with the object to strike a balance which cannot be said to be arbitrary or unreasonable,” asserted the court. Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray called the ruling unfortunate.
THE 10% QUOTA FOR SIX CASTES, INCLUDING JATS, WAS ORDERED TO BE KEPT IN ABEYANCE BY THE HIGH COURT
CHANDIGARH: The Supreme Court ruling on Wednesday holding Maratha reservation law unconstitutional as it violated 50% ceiling limit has brought under spotlight the fate of Jat reservation law of Haryana which the court has already put on hold.
After widespread violence during the February 2016 Jat quota stir, the Manohar lal Khattar-led BJP government that had come to power in October 2014 had enacted the law to provide 10% reservation in government jobs and educational institutions to Jats and five other castes.
The move was aimed at placating the Jat community that constitute about 25% of the state’s population and make them the single dominant vote bank.
However, the Jat quota law hit the legal hurdle in September 2017 after the Punjab and Haryana high court ordered to keep this law at abeyance till the Haryana Backward Classes Commission (HBCC) determined the extent and quantum of reservation in jobs and educational institutions.
The commission was asked to submit its report by March 31, 2018. However, it could not do so due to status quo being ordered by the Supreme Court.
The high court had asked the HBCC to determine the extent and quantum of reservation to Jats, Jat Sikhs, Rors, Bishnois, Tyagis and Muslim Jats. The commission finished the exercise of collating and examining the data but did not make its findings public due to the SC order.in June 2019, the state government ordered that posts reserved for Jats and five other castes, but kept in abeyance on the orders of the high court, would be considered as general category posts.
Already the total reservation in Haryana is 67% - SC quota is 20%, backward classes 37% and 10% for economically backward persons.
The 10% quota for six castes, including Jats, was ordered to be kept in abeyance by the HC.
Political census needed
All India Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti (AIJASS) chief Yashpal Malik, who was on the forefront of the Jat reservation stir, said the apex court ruling was on expected lines and called for political consensus to implement reservation law.
“We will call a meeting of representatives of Jat, Maratha, Patel and other communities whose reservation has been stuck down by the top court,” Malik said.
“If Maratha reservation is not valid as the judgment says, then people who were behind this law should be punished for enacting such misleading laws for their political gains,” he said.
Endorsing his views, Hawa Singh Sangwan, Haryana unit president of the Akhil Bharatiya Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti (ABJASS), said even as the SC struck down the Maratha reservation law as it violated 50% ceiling, reservation can still be provided above 50%.
On the other hand, Malik called upon people to understand the “dual face of political leaders,” who he said “made false claims and gave reservation which was not as per norms.”
He said knowingly the governments committed the illegality and fooled people.former BJP MP from Kurukshetra, Raj Kumari Saini, who was a vocal critic of the Jat quota demand, said, “Since the reservation is being given on the basis of caste, in my view, 100% reservation should be divided as per share of all castes in the population.”