Top advocates hired to defend decision in HC

With elections nearing, the Maharashtra government seems to be in no mood to leave any scope for confirming legality of its decision to provide reservation to Marathas. The Devendra Fadnavis government is all set to defend its decision to grant 16 per cent reservation to Maratha community, before the Bombay High Court on Wednesday. To justify its decision, the government has hired some top advocates to represent it.

The Bombay HC bench of Justices Ranjit More and Bharati Dangre will be hearing the final arguments in the petitions challenging the quota for Marathas.

For the final hearing, the state government has hired former Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, former Additional Solicitor General Paramjitsingh Patwalia. The senior counsels would be assisted by Nishant Katneshwarkar, standing counsel of the state government in Supreme Court. The law and judiciary department of the government has issued a letter to the office of Government Pleader of the state, notifying hiring of these advocates.

"It has been decided to hire the services of Rohatgi, Patwalia and Katneshwarkar as special counsels for appearing and conducting matters pertaining to Maratha reservation, before the HC," the letter reads. "The fees of these special counsels will be borne by the General Administration Department of the state government," the letter states further.