Students from the Maratha community and reservation experts have appealed to the Maharashtra government to exercise powers given under Section 17 of the Social and Educational Backward Class (SEBC) Act 2018 to remove problems that arose after the High Court's decision to stay quota for the postgraduate (MG) medical courses under SEBC category for the academic year 2019-20. Students staged dharna at Azad Maidan and had also met Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis with an appeal to direct the concerned authorities to consider reservation under SEBC category in PG medical admissions from the ensuing academic year.
Reservation expert Balasaheb Sarate said the state government can step in to help the students seeking reservation under the SEBC Act in PG medical courses by exercising powers under Section 17 of the same Act. "The Section 17(1) says if any difficulty arises in giving effect to the provisions of this Act, the Government may, as occasion arises, by an order published in the Official Gazette, do anything not inconsistent with the provisions of this Act, which appears to be necessary or expedient for the purpose of removing the difficulty within two years from the date of commencement of the Act," he informed.
However, Sarate said as per section 17(2) the government will have to lay the order made under 17 (1) before each house of the State Legislature. He also mentioned that the government in its special leave petition (SLP) filed in the apex court challenging the High Court order has submitted that the reservation given under SEBC category was quite legal and the admission process for PG medical courses had begun from February 20 this year.
Dr Shivaji Bhosale, who was part of the eight-member delegation called on by Fadnavis, said the future of 178 SEBC candidates was at stake following the stay granted by the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court on the admission process of PG medical courses. "Already the admission process has completed two rounds and all SEBC candidates had taken admission through their quotas ensured under the SEBC Act which came into effect from November 30, 2018," he added.
Meanwhile, state government sources said its pleader is expected to make a mention of SLP on Tuesday in the apex court. Besides, the state government, the Maratha Kranti Morcha convenor Vinod Patil and students from the Maratha community, who has participated in the admission process, have also filed their separate SLPs in the Supreme Court.