SC declines to rescind 50% cap on reservation
Apex court quashes Maharashtra law giving Marathas reservation in jobs, education that breached 50% limit
The Supreme Court on Wednesday quashed a 2018 Maharashtra law for reservation to Marathas in jobs and educational institutions, saying it breached the 50% ceiling on quotas while also declining to consider scrapping of the upper limit.
Uddhav Thackeray, the Maharashtra chief minister, called the ruling unfortunate and said the legal battle for the reservation will continue till there is victory even as the legal precedent set by the 1992 Indra Sawhney case has held the ceiling as inviolable for three decades now.
A five-judge Constitution Bench, headed by justice Ashok Bhushan, held the law violated equality and added the state government failed to show any extraordinary reason why Marathas should be considered socially and economically backward to get the reservation. It delivered its verdict on a clutch of petitions against the Maharashtra law.
“With respect to Article 342(A), we have upheld the Constitutional amendment and it does not violate any Constitutional provision and therefore, we have dismissed the writ petition challenging the Maratha reservation,” the bench, also comprising justices L Nageswara Rao, S Abdul Nazeer, Hemant Gupta and Ravindra Bhat, said.
The five-judge bench gave four verdicts, while concurring unanimously on three major issues including that the grant of Maratha quota is invalid. Justices Rao, Gupta and Bhat concurred with justices Bhushan and Nazeer in upholding the constitutional validity of the 102nd amendment but said states cannot decide on the list of Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC) and only the President has the power to notify it.
Justices Bhushan and Nazeer in their minority view said both the Centre and State have powers to decide on the list of SEBC.
The majority verdict also directed the Centre to notify a fresh list of SEBCs, and said that till the time the notification is being issued, the existing list will hold its place. The top court unanimously refused to refer the Mandal judgement to a larger bench for reconsideration on issues including permitting the state to breach the 50% ceiling on quota in extraordinary circumstances.
Maharashtra passed the 2018 law based on a State Backward Commission report and the window of “extraordinary situations” cited in the Indra Sawhney case. It provided 16% reservation in jobs and educational institutions to Marathas in addition to
the existing 50% quota. In 2019, the Bombay high court brought down the reservation to 12% in admissions and 13% in jobs. This promoted the state government to move the Supreme Court.
In Mumbai, Thackeray requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Ram Nath Kovind to take an immediate decision on the quota. He added he expects the Centre to show the same alacrity on the issue as was shown in response to issues like the 1985 Shah Bano case and scrapping of Jammu & Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status through a Constitutional amendment in 2019.
The government had the 1985 judgment overturned using its overwhelming majority in Parliament after the Supreme Court granted divorcee to one Shah Bano and alimony for life amid protests against what was seen as an interference in the personal law.
Thackeray, who convened an urgent meeting of the ministers and lawyers to deliberate on the further course of action, said the Supreme Court scrapped a law enacted by all parties in the state legislature.
Congress leader Ashok Chavan, who heads the state Cabinet’s committee on Maratha reservation, blamed the previous BJP government for enacting the reservation law after the 102nd constitutional amendment, which gave constitutional status to the National Commission for Backward Classes and mandated it to suggest the castes that need to get the reservation, in 2018 curtailed the state’s power to give reservation. “[The previous BJP-led] government misguided people of Maharashtra by enacting the law when it had no power.”
Chavan said that since the Supreme Court has clarified that the right of giving reservation to any community is with the Centre, the state will approach the Central government.
“We will establish the exceptional and extraordinary circumstances to show the backwardness of the community and send the proposal to the Centre. Now it is the responsibility of the Centre to accord the reservation to the community,” he said.
The Constitution Bench earlier called the matter of “seminal importance” and heard the Centre and states over the necessity of reviewing the mandate the Indra Sawhney case laid out. In the Indra Sawhney case, famously known as the Mandal Commission case, a nine-judge bench imposed the ceiling of 50% on total reservation except in certain extraordinary situations. The 1992 judgment also barred reservation solely on economic criterion.
The five-judge bench in March this year agreed to examine whether the 1992 ruling should be reconsidered in the wake of quotas exceeding 50% in various states and the central government’s move in 2018 to frame a law for the reservation to economically and socially backward classes.
Most states including Maharashtra, Bihar, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh were in favour of breaching the 50% limit. They argued even after seven decades of independence, several classes and communities were deprived of development.