Supreme Court to pronounce verdict on Wednesday on pleas challenging Maratha quota

The Supreme Court will on Wednesday pronounce its verdict on a batch of petitions challenging the Bombay High Court verdict which had upheld the grant of reservation to Marathas in admissions and government jobs in the stateA fivejudge constitution bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan will pronounce the verdict On March 26 the top court had reserved its verdict on the batch of pleasThe lengthy hearing on the issue also saw submissions being made on whether the landmark 1992 Indra Sawhney verdict called the Mandal judgement which put a cap of 50 per cent on reservations requires reconsideration by a larger bench The constitution bench had commenced hearing arguments in the matter on March 15The top court had said that it proposes to consider issues including whether the judgement in the Indra Sawhney case needs to be referred to or requires relook by a larger bench ldquoin the light of subsequent constitutional amendments judgments and changed social dynamics of the societyrdquoThe high court while upholding the law in June 2019 had held that 16 per cent reservation was not justifiable and the quota should not exceed 12 per cent in employment and 13 per cent in admissionsThe Centre had argued in the top court that Maharashtra has the legislative competence for granting reservation to Marathas and its decision is Constitutional as the 102nd amendment does not denude a state of the power to declare its list of Socially and Educationally Backward Classes SEBCThe 102nd Constitution amendment Act of 2018 inserted Articles 338B which deals with the structure duties and powers of the National Commission for Backward Class NCBC and 342A dealing with power of the President to notify a particular caste as SEBC as also of Parliament to change the listSolicitor General Tushar Mehta appearing for the Centre had said that in its view the SEBC Act 2018 of Maharashtra granting reservation to people of the Maratha community in the state in jobs and admissions is ldquoConstitutionalrdquoldquoThe Centre is of the view that the Maharashtra SEBC Act is constitutional We construe Article 342A gives enabling role to Central government to determine the SEBCrdquo Mehta had said adding that the Centre adopts the submissions of the Attorney General and it should be considered as the view of the Union governmentOn March 18 Attorney General K K Venugopal had told the top court that the 102nd amendment to the Constitution does not deprive state legislatures to enact law determining the SEBC and conferring benefits on themThe apex court had on September 9 last year stayed the implementation of legislation and referred to a larger bench the batch of pleas challenging the validity of law but made it clear that status of those who have availed of the benefits would not be disturbedThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever