‘86% Marathas literate, how can they be educationally backward?’ PLEAS AGAINST QUOTA TO BE HEARD ON MON

OBC groups term findings in ATR, bill contradictory and unrealistic

MUMBAI: From being termed educationally backward despite 86% literacy to the percentage of farmer suicides, experts and organisations affiliated to other backward classes (OBC) on Wednesday termed the findings mentioned in the action taken report (ATR) and the bill to show the backwardness of Marathas “contradictory and unrealistic”.

The bill to grant 16% reservation to the community in socially and educationally backward category was passed on November 30.

The ATR and the statistics in the bill are based on the Maharashtra State Commission for Backward Classes (MSCBC) report, which was not tabled in the legislature.

A petition challenging the reservation was filed in the Bombay high court (HC) on Wednesday.

The findings place the literacy rate of Maratha community at 86%. According to the statistics, Marathas have 15.92% members in Indian Police Service (IPS), 6.92% in Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and 7.87% in Indian Forest Services (IFS) in the state.

The commission states the community scores 8 on 8 in terms of educational backwardness, and 7.5 of the 10 points for social backwardness.

The report states Marathas’ literacy in technical education is 0.77%, but at the same time mentions that in engineering

courses – which is a technical course – the admission percentage of the community is 7.5%.

“The state government has been claiming that most farmer suicides are from the Maratha community, but the percentage of suicides given in the report is 23%. This means, 77% of the suicides are from other communities, including OBCS. Secondly, the report shows 93% of the Maratha families are below poverty line (with an income of less than ₹1 lakh), even though the annual income limit for BPL families is ₹25,000,” said a social welfare department official in the know of the report. An MSCBC member who had given his dissent note in the report stated the percentage of Marathas in Class A jobs in government is 13.57%, against OBC

percentage of 8.99%.

The percentage in Class B is 15.45% for Marathas and 10.93% for OBCS. Marathas hold 19.57% Class C jobs, compared to 12.80% held by OBCS.

He said this has been one of the grounds for his dissent note, which says Marathas cannot be ascertained as socially backward.

Balasaheb Sarate Patil, a Maratha leader who was involved in the process of surveys of the community, said, “There are discrepancies in the statistics in the ATR and the bill, but the court will consider the findings of the MSCBC report, which has not been tabled. Even the Commission’s Act does not expect accurate arithmetic calculations or statistical methodology to substantiate the findings.

The contradictory findings in the ATR or the bills are likely to be errors committed by government officials.”

Chandrakant Bavkar, president of OBC Sangharsh Samanvay Samiti, said, “Even while recording the farmer suicides in the community, the suicides by Kunbis farmers in Vidarbha have been recorded under Maratha category. The entire procedure followed to grant the reservation is doubtful and the decision of not tabling the report was to cover this goof-up.”

Former MSCBC member and scholar Hari Narke, in his Facebook post, has also questioned the finding that 7% Marathas hold government jobs, when their average across the category was 17.99%. MUMBAI: The Bombay high court (HC) will on Monday hear a public interest litigation challenging the 16% Maratha reservation announced by the state on November 30, along with an earlier petition filed in 2014.

When the recent petition, filed by Dr Jishri Patil, came up for hearing on Wednesday morning, a bench of chief justice Naresh Patil and justice Makarand Karnik refused to hear, it unless the lawyer, Dr Gunaratan Sadavarte, was present. The petitioner, a member of the Indian Constitutionalist Council (ICC), told the court that both the lawyer and she had received threats warning them against filing the petition. The bench then directed Dr Sadavarte to be present at 3pm.

“The matter was mentioned for early hearing as the government plans to implement 16% quota in medical admissions and employment drive that involves around 76,000 posts. This will reduce the number of seats for the open category to only 32%,” submitted Dr Sadavarte to the bench, in the afternoon.

Senior advocate VA Thorat and Anil Sakhare, who appeared for the state, told the court there was a difference between the old and new legislation. “The previous legislation was stayed as it did not follow the stipulated procedure of appointing a Backward Class Commission to study the need,” he said.