Lack of coordination led to MVA’s failure to defend Maratha reservation: Fadnavis

Nagpur: Launching a scathing attack on the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government’s failure to defend Maratha reservations in Supreme Court, leader of opposition Devendra Fadnavis on Wednesday said lack of coordination between departments and lawyers pleading the case, and non-serious approach, had led to the debacle.
Speaking to media in the city, he accused chief minister Uddhav Thackeray and his government of “deliberately not making efforts to defend the Maharashtra State Reservation for Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC) Act, 2018, granting 12% reservation in education and 13% in jobs to the Maratha community”.
“In last 50 years, this government (Congress-NCP) has failed to grant reservation to the community. Now, when we enacted the law and successfully defended it in the Bombay high court as well as in the SC, they didn’t want it to continue just so the BJP couldn’t take credit.”
Taking a dig at Thackeray, Fadnavis said he should make efforts to understand the SEBC Act with the advocate general’s help. “I think the CM wasn’t properly briefed by subordinates on the issue. He was kept uninformed about the developments. If we had been in government, we would have ensured total coordination with lawyers.”
Denying charges levelled by PWD minister Ashok Chavan and minority development minister Nawab Malik, who accused him of misleading the legislature, the former CM said both were lying. Fadnavis said his government didn’t enact the law after the 102nd Constitution amendment, but made an amendment to the law. “They should do study it first, as we had successfully defended our amendment in HC and managed to avoid stay in the top court in front of the former chief justice of India’s (CJI) bench. This government failed to defend it properly, leading to SC striking down the Act.”
Terming the verdict as “painful and disappointing”, the Southwest Nagpur MLA said MVA government also failed to defend the OBC reservation in local polls introduced by the BJP government and it too was stayed by the SC. “Their officials only sought adjournments in this case too. Their leaders only speak about granting social justice in speeches, but fail to implement it in reality. It’s high time the MVA government gets its act together and provides justice to Marathas by properly implementing various schemes started by our government like Rajashree Shahu, scholarships and sending their children abroad at government expense.”
SMSN hails SC verdict
Nagpur: Save Merit and Save Nation (SMSN) has hailed the SC verdict, saying justice was finally done. SMSN through state president Anil Laddhad had challenged the Bombay high court verdict with the help of senior counsels Arvind Datar, Gopal Shankarnarayan, Shyam Dewan, Rajiv Dhavan, Siddharth Bhatnagar and others. Former administrative judge at HC’s Nagpur bench Ravi Deshpande assisted by Hrishikesh Chitaley and Ashwin Deshpande also pleaded the case.
SMSN had moved the top court by filing three petitions, contending that the Maratha reservation was being provided for political gains. “We had always demanded that 50% reservation shouldn’t be breached. We had created awareness in urban and rural areas and received overwhelming response. It’s a tribute to thousands of our activists who were fighting against this injustice meted out by the government. The Act of 2018 violates the principles of equality and exceeding the ceiling limit of 50% clearly violates Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution,” a press note issued by SMSN said.
Explaining the verdict, lawyer Ashwin Deshpande said the SC ruled that its 1992 verdict in Indira Sawhney case need not be referred to a larger bench and the 50% ceiling on reservations in that case was a good law. “The five-judge bench said there were no extraordinary circumstances to grant reservation to Maratha community over and above the 50%. They said the Sawhney judgment was repeatedly followed by this SC and has been approved by at least four Constitution benches,” he told TOI.
Deshpande informed that the SC disbelieved Gaikwad commission’s report, stating that neither it nor the HC verdict had made out any extraordinary situation to grant the reservation to Marathas in jobs and education.