Deepali Kalia
Maharashtra Minister Nawab Malik stated that as per the order issued by the state government’s General Administration Department (GAD) Maratha community can now avail benefits of reservation under the 10% Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) quota in government jobs and educational institutes.
“EWS reservation is for economically backward sections which are not covered in any other caste-based reservation. After the Supreme Court scrapping Maratha reservation the community in Maharashtra has also become eligible for EWS reservation with the 8 lakh annual income cap as per the EWS reservation rules,” stated the Minister.
A five-judge constitutional bench of the Supreme Court comprising of Justices Ashok Bhushan, L Nageswara Rao, S Abdul Nazeer, Hemant Gupta and Ravindra Bhat had on May 5 2021, had struck down the reservation for the community in government jobs and educational institutions brought in by the state government in 2018 stating that the Maratha community cannot be declared as an educationally and socially backward community in order to bring them within the reserved category
The Supreme Court stated that the reservation exceeded the 50 % cap which was imposed earlier.
Uddhav Thackeray, Chief Minister of Maharashtra on May 12 written to Prime minister Narendra Modi asking him to take the necessary steps in order to declare the Maratha community in the state as Socially and Educationally Backward (SEBC) so that they can claim the reservation in government employment and education as least to 12 per cent and 13 per cent respectively.
