Supreme Court quashes Maharashtra law granting reservation to Maratha community

The top court made it clear in its judgment that people from the Maratha community cannot be declared as educationally and socially backward community to bring them within the reserved category.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday quashed the Maharashtra law granting reservation to the Maratha community in admissions and government jobs in the state. The top court made it clear in its judgment that people from the Maratha community cannot be declared as educationally and socially backward community to bring them within the reserved category.

A five-judge bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, L Nageswara Rao, S Abdul Nazeer, Hemant Gupta and S Ravindra Bhat also refused to refer the 1992 Mandal judgment, setting a 50 per cent cap on reservation, to a larger bench for reconsideration.

The bench concurred on three major issues, framed during the hearing, and said that no exceptional circumstances or the case was made out by Maharashtra to breach the 50 per cent cap on reservation.

The judgment came on a batch of pleas challenging the Bombay High Court verdict which had upheld the grant of reservation to Marathas in admissions and government jobs in the state.

On March 26, the top court had reserved its verdict on the batch of pleas. The high court, while upholding the law in June 2019, had held that 16 per cent reservation was not justifiable and the quota should not exceed 12 per cent in employment and 13 per cent in admissions.

The Centre had argued in the top court that Maharashtra has the legislative competence for granting reservation to Marathas and its decision is Constitutional as the 102nd amendment does not denude a state of the power to declare its list of Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC).

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