Marathas in Marathwada are backward in education and employment, which is why the Gaikwad Commission relied on data from the region, senior counsel Prasad Dhakephalkar said on Monday, justifying the sample size used in the survey to substantiate the need for 16% reservation for the community.

“Just because a few persons from the community are forward does not mean it does not deserve reservation. Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar was highly educated, but that did not deter the Constitution from giving reservation to the caste he belonged to,” Dhakephalkar told a division bench of justice Ranjit More and justice Bharati Dangre.

The counsel for petitioner Dilip Patil, said, “Marathas in most regions get benefits of reservation under the OBC category, as they are identified either as Maratha-Kunbi or Kunbi-Maratha. But Marathas from Marathwada have no such benefits. Both men and women from the region are involved in manual work, with almost no representation in public services.”

He justified the approach of the commission stating the judgment of the SC in the Ram Singh case, which looked at reservation for Jats, accepted such surveys.

Responding to the objection that members of the commission used personal knowledge to arrive at the conclusion, Dhakephalkar said that too was in line with another Supreme Court judgment of 1972, which allowed augmenting personal knowledge with spot data.

First Published: Mar 19, 2019 10:44 IST