All eyes would be on the Supreme Court on Wednesday as it would likely be pronouncing its verdict on a bunch of petitions for and against the Maratha reservation.
A five judge constitution bench led by Justice Ashok Bhushan would be pronouncing its verdict on a bunch of petitions appealing against the judgment of the Bombay High Court.
The Bombay HC had in June 2019, upheld the constitutionality of the quota to Marathas, holding that the community was indeed back in terms of social and education.
The HC bench of Justices Ranjit More and Bharati Dangre had also ordered the state to provide 12 percent reservation in jobs and 13 percent in education, to the Marathas.
The order was challenged by advocate Sanjeet Shukla before a three judge bench of the Apex court. The three judge bench, however, September last year, had referred the matter to a larger bench of five judges to decide the validity of the HC verdict.
The five judge bench also comprising of Justices L Nageswara Rao, Abdul Nazeer, Hemant Gupta and Ravindra Bhat, has heard the contentions of the Union government and also of the Maharashtra government along with other states.
The bench had framed certain important questions in the last hearing and is expected to answer all of them, ultimately decide the fate of Maratha quota.
The prime questions framed are whether to allow states to grant reservation to communities by exceeding the 50 per cent limit as imposed by the top court.
The other question is whether the HC was correctly interpreted the Gaikwad commission report, which concluded that the Marathas were socially and educationally backward and deserved reservation in public service and education.
