The Supreme Court on Wednesday quashed the 2018 law framed by the Maharashtra government to give reservation to the Maratha community, ruling the state could not have breached 50% ceiling on quota.
The constitution bench also declined to consider scrapping the 50% ceiling on reservations in educational institutions and jobs by reviewing a legal precedent that has, for three decades now, held the ceiling as inviolable.
The five-judge bench, headed by justice Ashok Bhushan, held that the law providing for quota to the Maratha community beyond 50% violated equality and that the state failed to show any extraordinary reason why Marathas should be considered as socially and economically backward class.
The bench also upheld the validity of the 102nd constitutional amendment and ruled that the Centre alone has the power to determine socially & educationally backward classes (SEBCs). It underlined that states cant have a separate list of SEBCs and the power is only with the President to notify the list of SEBCs. In determination of SEBCs, the President shall be guided by the National Commission on Backward Classes.
The bench delivered its verdict on a clutch of petitions arising out of a law framed by Maharashtra for reservation for Marathas, causing a breach in the ceiling.
It is in the wake of the Maharashtras quota law that the bench was called upon to revisit its 1992 ruling by referring the issues to a bench of nine or eleven judges.
Almost 30 years after a nine-judge bench in the Indra Sawhney case (famously known as the Mandal Commission case) imposed the ceiling of 50% on total reservation, the five-judge bench had, in March this year, agreed to examine whether the 1992 ruling should be reconsidered in the wake of various states providing for quota exceeding 50% and the Central government framing a law in 2018 for reservation to economically and socially backward classes.
Other members of the five-judge bench are justices L Nageswara Rao, S Abdul Nazeer, Hemant Gupta and S Ravindra Bhat.
Terming it a matter of seminal importance, the bench had also heard Centre and states on the necessity of reviewing the mandate laid down in the Indra Sawhney case, which ruled that reservation should not exceed 50%, barring certain extraordinary situations. Further, the 1992 judgment barred reservation solely on economic criterion.
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The Centre chose not comment on the validity of the Maratha reservation law and confined its submissions to the ambit of the 102nd constitutional amendment whereby it introduced quota for economically weaker sections (EWS). The Union government has maintained that the amendment has not altered any arrangement and states will continue to have the power to have a separate list of socially and educationally backward classes for the purposes of reservation.
Most states, including Maharashtra, Bihar, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, were in favour of breaching the 50% limit, claiming that even after seven decades of independence, several classes and communities were deprived of development. They were united in asking for a review of the 1992 verdict.
There were, however, some organisations that argued in support of keeping the 50% ceiling, pointing out that since 1992, no judgment by the top court had questioned the sanctity of the 50% rule. Instead, they argued that subsequent judgments have followed the Indra Sawhneys ruling.
During one hearing, the bench also wondered for how long reservation should be allowed to continue considering the scheme under the Constitution for reservation to be a temporary measure.
Based on a report by the Maharashtra State Backward Commission and using the window of extraordinary situations in the Indra Sawhney case, the Maharashtra law of 2018 had provided 16% reservation in jobs and admissions to the Maratha community in addition to the existing 50% quota. But the Bombay high court, by its judgment in June 2019, brought down the reservation to 12%in admissions to educational institutions and 13% in jobs, prompting the state to move in appeal.