Hyderabad: The Supreme Court has pronounced a sensational verdict setting aside the reservations for Marathas in employment and education, terming the quota as unconstitutional.
Following the objections raised by some educationists and social activists, the legal dispute over the issue was raging in the court for the past two years.
In June 2019, the Bombay High Court had favorably disposed towards the quota and ordered a reduction of reservation in jobs to 13 percent and to 12 percent in educational institutions as recommended by Gaikwad Commission.
During the course of the proceedings, the Supreme Court had asked “for how many generations will reservation continue?”
In its final verdict, the court felt that the Maratha reservations violated the principles of equality. Thereby the Supreme Court concurred with the petitioner’s contention that the State government does not have the powers to recognize Marathas as socially and educationally backward.
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In its verdict, the court clearly elucidated the difference between the 10 percent reservations accorded to the Economically Weaker Sections and the quota announced by the Maharashtra government for Marathas. The court also ruled that there was no need to refer the 1992 Indira Sawhney judgment, which fixed reservation limits to 50 percent, to a larger bench. By doing so the apex court gave clarity on many related issues.
The court made remarks that will have far-reaching consequences throughout the country as it said - neither Gaikwad Commission nor the High Court has made out any situation for exceeding the ceiling of 50 percent reservation for Marathas.
The main objective of the reservations provided by the Constitution was to provide temporary support to the sections that languished under exploitation for generations. Thereby the Constitution envisaged betterment in the lives of the weaker sections.
The father of the Constitution, Dr B.R. Ambedkar had said that there would not be any greater misuse of power than to confine 70 percent of the employment and educational opportunities to a few sections.
In practice, what happened to his sane advice? Though the Supreme Court had said on several occasions that the sum total of reservations should not exceed 50 percent, quota politics came to the fore whenever powerful social groups raised the demand for reservations.
Setting aside all the legal hurdles and objections, Tamilnadu is providing 69 percent reservation. States like Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana too are following suit. Meghalaya has recently justified reservations beyond 50 percent by stating that 85.9 percent of its population was tribal.
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While maintaining that the relaxation of the maximum limit will lead to inequalities, the apex court’s Constitutional bench has asked a straight question to the State governments saying - are reservations the only way to benefit the oppressed sections? There is much to ponder over in the words of the court in this regard.
Though governments have added several castes to the BC list, they did precious little for the betterment of those castes. It is an open secret that no scheme was ever implemented for the benefit of such castes.
During the proceedings of the Maratha reservations case, the court indirectly touched upon the aspect by calling for establishing educational institutions to encourage education among the targeted sections. The words of the court are worthy of implementation by the State governments. Reservations will be beneficial to the nation only when they are able to make people stand on their own feet on social and educational fronts, irrespective of their caste and creed.
