Mumbai: The Bombay High Court judgment has given a fillip to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis for the forthcoming Assembly elections as the Maratha community is the major political influencer in the state. This will weaken the opposition tirade against his government on this front. Meanwhile, the Bombay HC ruling on Maratha reservations is expected to have socio-political and judicial ramifications in various states. Those states where caste wars are currently being fought in the courts and those governments which have kept reservations on hold, will now get an impetus. This ruling gives a shot in the arm to Gujjars, Jats and Patidars which are aggressively fighting for the reservation.
All the courts look up to Bombay HC in many important judicial matters. Its judgments are regularly cited. In the past, Rajasthan assembly passed a bill in February which granted five per cent reservation to Gujjars. But in the past Rajasthan HC had shot down reservations in 2009 and 2015. On both occasions the court held, the five per cent quota had exceeded the 50 per cent reservation limit laid down by the Supreme Court.
Reservations for Jats which was granted under the central government's Other Backward Communities' List was quashed by the SC in 2015, in the Ram Singh vs, Union of India case. However, the Punjab & Haryana High Court had, in September 2017, upheld the constitutional validity of the law passed by the Haryana Assembly providing 10 per cent reservation to Jats and five other communities in Haryana. In Gujarat, Hardik Patel, leader of the Patidar community may now re-emerge with his demand for Patidar reservation.
