Maratha Reservation: Won't conduct recruitment till September 15 due to COVID-19, Maharashtra tells Supreme Court

The State of Maharashtra today informed the Supreme Court that it had taken a decision to not conduct any recruitments till September 15, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. This submission was made by the state government during the hearing in the matter concerning Maratha reservation. .A three-judge Bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao, Hemant Gupta and S Ravindra Bhat was scheduled to start from today the day-to-day hearing in the petitions challenging the validity of the 12% quota for the Maratha community in jobs and admissions to educational institutions in the state..However, the final hearing in the case now stands adjourned to September 1 after the state government submitted that it would not conduct any recruitment till September 15. The Court will also take up for hearing the application raising preliminary issues on August 25. .The main premise of the batch of petitions challenging the validity of the Maratha quota is that it took the total reservation in the state to 74%, which is way beyond the 50% ceiling on quota put by the Supreme Court in its landmark Indra Sawhney judgment..Though advocates representing various parties to the case had urged the Bench on July 16 to adjourn the matter till physical hearing commences, Justice Rao noted that since there was no certainty on when the normal courts would start functioning, it was fit that such an "important issue" is heard via video conferencing. .During an earlier date of hearing, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the petitioners, had argued that if the 12% Maratha quota violated the 50% ceiling on reservation, then the Court should also simultaneously consider the validity of 10% quota for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS), as that would also breach the ceiling..The Bench had noted that it would take up adjudication on the EWS issued as well, when regular hearing begins. .In July last year, a Bench headed by the then CJI Ranjan Gogoi, while issuing notice in the plea, held that State of Maharashtra cannot apply the Maratha reservation retrospectively. Thus, the Maharashtra government’s orders applying the reservation retrospectively from 2014 will be subject to the outcome of the case in the Supreme Court..Maratha Reservation: SC issues notice in challenge to Bombay HC verdict, no stay on judgment (for now).Read Order: