Mumbai: The Maharashtra government on Monday urged the Bombay High Court to dismiss a petition which has challenged the constitutional validity of the 32 per cent reservation granted to the Other Backward Classes (OBC). The HC has however, asked government to file its affidavit. A division bench of Justices Ranjit More and Bharati Dangre has accordingly adjourned the matter for further hearing till March 4.
The judges were seized with a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by one Balasaheb Sarate, who has challenged the constitutional validity of an increase of reservation of the OBCs from the original 14 per cent in 1967 to to 32 per cent, without any study of population statistics or data analysis.
It questions government resolutions for inclusion of “hundreds of castes and subcastes in the list of OBC/VJNT/SBC in the absence of any valid reports, recommendations of any commission and asks if time has come for courts to call for data from independent agencies like Census commissioner, collected in an unbiased manner, to decide inclusion and exclusion from OBC list. During the course of hearing, the special counsel appearing for the government, informed the bench that the petition is politically motivated and deserves to be dismissed at the outset.
The government further argued that it was not correct on part of Sarate, who has claimed to be researching and supporting the reservation to OBCs. Having heard the submissions, the bench directed the government to out forth its arguments on an affidavit and accordingly posted the matter for further hearing on March 4.
