NGO cites 2015 Supreme Court ruling in Jat case, to question Maratha quota

MUMBAI: Argument proceeded before the Bombay high court against validity of reservations for the Maratha community in Maharashtra on Thursday with activists citing a Supreme Court ruling against inclusion of Jats in the list of backward classes.

Senior counsel Pradeep Sancheti appearing for an NGO, Equality Forum, said that the 2015 apex court judgment by then bench of Justice Ranjan Gogoi (now the Chief Justice of India) and Justice Rohinton Nariman, in the Jat case "proceeds on the basis that the state is working on advancement of people and hence a forward cannot become backward."

The challenge is to the constitutional validity of the new law that carved out a 16 per cent quota to Maratha community in state-run jobs and educational institutions. Sancheti said that there are a "number of central and state reports which hold against Marathas as being backward and some which specifically hold that they are forward."

Reading from the judgment he said, "The perception of a self-proclaimed socially backward class of citizens or even the perception of the "advanced classes" as to the social status of the "less fortunate" cannot continue to be a constitutionally permissible yardstick for determination of backwardness...Neither can any longer backwardness be a matter of determination on the basis of mathematical formulae evolved by taking into account social, economic and educational indicators. Determination of backwardness must also cease to be relative; possible wrong inclusions cannot be the basis for further inclusions but the gates would be opened only to permit entry of the most distressed."

Sancheti said the government ought to first lay down the criterion to test for such exceptional circumstances. State counsel VA Thorat stood up to say that there were "general guidelines given by the backward class commission."

Sancheti, arguing before a bench of Justices Ranjit More and Bharati Dangre however argued, "There is no case at all for classifying Maratha as backward." Questioning the credibility of the data produced by the state Sancheti added, "If data is not sacrosanct its analysis will not lead anywhere."

The SC had also said, "The percentage of the OBC population estimated at "not less than 52%" (Indra Sawhney) certainly must have gone up considerably as over the last two decades there has been only inclusions in the Central as well as state OBC lists and hardly any exclusion therefrom. This is certainly not what has been envisaged in our Constitutional scheme."

The hearing will continue on Friday.