The Maharashtra Government on Wednesday informed the Bombay High Court that it would soon promulgate an Ordinance giving effect its decision to extend 16 per cent reservations to Marathas and five per cent to Muslims in Government jobs and education.
State Advocate General Darius Khambata made a written submission to this effect before a HC bench headed by Justice Abhay Oka, a fortnight after the Maharashtra Cabinet approved 16 per cent reservations to Marathas and five per cent to Muslims.
Meanwhile, informed official sources said that the State Government had sent the draft of Ordinance to Maharashtra Governor K Sankaranarayanan and that it would be promulgated within next couple of days.
The HC bench, hearing two PIls challenging the State Government’s decision on reservations, took the Advocate General’s statement on record and adjourned the matter for further hearing on August 5.
Responding to a letter submitted last week by Ketan Tirodkar, one of the two petitioners, that he had received threats to his life and that he would not be present at Wednesday’s hearing, the HC bench asked the Advocate General to take up the issue with the police officials concerned and provide security to the petitioner.
In his PIl filed on June 27, Tirodkar stated that “the State’s decision to brand the Maratha community as socially and educationally backward is a fraud committed upon this country and its Constitution”.
The petitioner questioned the State Government’s decision taken on June 25 to extend 16 per cent reservations to Maratha community by including its members in the newly created ‘Educationally & Socially Backward Category’ (ECBC) on two grounds.
He said the State Government’s decision had violated the Supreme Court’s ruling in Indira Sawhney vs Union of India, 1993, which restricted the reservations to a maximum of 50 per cent.
However, the Government’s decision of extending 15 per cent reservations to Marathas and five per cent to Muslims took the reservations in Maharashtra from 52 per cent to 73 per cent.
Citing the second ground for contesting the State Government’s decision to extend 16 per cent reservation to Marathas, the activist stated that the terming of Marathi community as ECBC by the State “is a mockery of the people of Maharashtra and of the Community itself”.
Apart from Tirodkar, there is one more petitioner in the case. Freedom fighter Dr laxman Patil, who has filed his PIl on behalf of the Indian Constitutional Council, has stated in his petition that the reservations announced by the DF Government constituted discrimination.
Arguing the PIl on behalf of Patil, his lawyer Gunratan Sadavarte cited the rulings of the Supreme Court, the Delhi High Court and the Jharkhand High Court to substantiate his stand that the reservations made by the Maharashtra Government was in violation of the Constitution.