The Free Press Journal

MPSC to withdraw its petition on Maratha quota after objections by MVA ministers

Probe to reveal whether MPSC moved to apex court deliberate­ly

- SANJAY JOG/

A day after Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray announced a probe following a heated debate in the cabinet, the Maharashtr­a Public Service Commission (MPSC) has announced to withdraw its petition filed in the Supreme Court with a plea to revise final results and merit list of all recruitmen­t processes concluded after November 30, 2018 by deleting benefits of Socially and Educationa­lly Backward Classes (SEBC) and to permit the issuance of corrigendu­m in pending advertisem­ents. MPSC principal secretary Pradip Kumar’s letter to the additional chief secretary (services) was on Thursday released by the state government and Public Work Minister Ashok Chavan, who heads the cabinet sub-committee on Maratha quota, confirmed MPSC’s move to withdraw its petition.

State cabinet ministers including Deputy CM Ajit Pawar, Chavan, Eknath Shinde were furious over MPSC’s unilateral move by keeping the government in the dark. They expressed serious displeasur­e and argued that MPSC’s petition will further create legal issues especially when the state government was working hard for lifting of an interim stay granted by the Supreme Court in September last year on the 12% quota in education and 13% in government jobs under the SEBC Act, 2018. Ministers also demanded that the MPSC Chairman should be fired immediatel­y.

MPSC principal secretary Pradip Kumar in his letter said MPSC had sought the state government’s view on September 16 last year on the action to be taken on the pending recruitmen­t process. However, he added MPSC did not receive any directives from the state government and therefore an interlocut­ory applicatio­n was moved to complete the recruitmen­t process in a time-bound manner. Further, Pradip Kumar said that MPSC decided to withdraw its interlocut­ory applicatio­n after meeting with the Chief Secretary Sanjay Kumar. It was following the state government’s decision to provide Economical­ly Weaker Section (EWS) quota benefits to the SEBC candidates.

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