Mumbai: Outsiders attending the Maharashtra State Backward Class Fee conferences, variations over what parameters to make use of to find out the backwardness of Marathas, insistence on a restricted socioeconomic survey of the caste as a substitute of an all-caste census, and show-cause notices despatched to its members with “flimsy reasons”. These are a few of the allegations that two members who resigned from the fee this month — Balaji Killarikar and Laxman Hake — have made towards the state authorities after they resigned from the physique.
The fee seems into issues of together with or excluding a selected caste from classes comparable to Vimukta Jati and Nomadic Tribes (VJNT), Different Backward Lessons (OBC) and Particular Backward Lessons (SBC). The fee, a quasi-judicial physique, conducts intensive research and submits its report back to the Maharashtra authorities.
Final week, Killarikar and Hake resigned from the panel citing authorities interference within the panel’s functioning. The resignations and the allegations come at a time when the difficulty of the Maratha reservation is gathering steam within the state, months earlier than parliamentary and meeting elections.
“There were some differences of opinion in the backward class commission with regard to some of the parameters given by the state government. There was some direct and indirect interference by the government with an agenda,” Hake, an OBC chief presently related to the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), advised ThePrint.
The state backward class fee is an unbiased physique, he mentioned.
“It has rights under the Constitution. We refused to work with the government’s agenda. Their insistence was to check the backwardness of the Maratha community in the shortest possible time,” he mentioned.
ThePrint tried to succeed in Atul Save, Maharashtra’s Different Backward Bahujan Welfare Minister — the fee was constituted beneath the division — by calls and textual content message however hadn’t obtained a response on the time of publication of this report.
Marathas, who kind an estimated 33 p.c of the state’s inhabitants, have periodically protested for reservation in authorities jobs and academic establishments of the state.
In 2021, the Supreme Court docket had rejected a report on the social and financial backwardness of the Marathas submitted by the fee’s former chairman, Justice M.G. Gaikwad (Retd), and struck down the quota given to Marathas beneath the ‘socially and educationally backward class’ as “unconstitutional”.
Earlier this yr — confronted with the newest spherical of protests simply forward of the 2024 elections — the Maharashtra authorities filed a healing petition to get the Supreme Court docket to rethink its choice.
In October this yr, the Maharashtra authorities introduced it will grant Kunbi certificates — Kunbis are a sub-Maratha caste group that’s counted among the many state’s OBC — to Marathas to make sure the neighborhood is counted among the many state’s different backward lessons. The transfer sparked one more row, with the state’s different OBC teams elevating issues.
In the meantime, Maratha activist Manoj Jarange Patil, who’s been on the centre of the recent Maratha protests, has reportedly warned the Eknath Shinde authorities towards lacking their 24 December deadline to grant reservation.
The federal government will “regret it”, he advised the media at Nanded Saturday.
Additionally Learn: Associated communities with agrarian roots — why Marathas are claiming to be Kunbis amid quota stir
‘Govt interference in independent commission’
The Maharashtra State Backward Class Fee has 9 members.
Based on Hake and Killarikar, the newest battle on account of which they resigned and a 3rd member is considering resignation was a letter by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde dated 13 November with ‘terms of reference’ on go concerning the Maratha quota.
“The authorities who have a quasi-judicial authority are being given directions by the state government…One member post was vacant, so the state government appointed one person to the vacant post. Thereafter, the chairman of the commission had a meeting about this (Maratha quota) with government representatives and advisers appointed by the government to work on the Maratha quota,” Killarikar, a lawyer for over three many years, advised ThePrint.
Based on him, three members of some personal establishments — appointed by the governments to help the quota battle — attended two of the fee’s conferences, prompting objections from some members.
The largest objection that the 2 members who resigned mentioned they’d was to the state authorities’s instructions of solely conducting a restricted survey and adopting totally different parameters from those that exist to assist decide the socioeconomic backwardness of the Marathas.
The phrases of reference shared by Shinde, which ThePrint has accessed, say the fee ought to decide the factors and parameters to be adopted in figuring out social and financial backwardness for the advantages of reservation, decide distinctive circumstances for the advantages of reservation, and gather recent quantifiable knowledge and scrutinise knowledge collected up to now.
The phrases of reference additionally say that the fee ought to confirm the existence of remarkable circumstances or extraordinary conditions within the context of the Marathas to justify exceeding the 50 p.c reservation cap laid down by the Supreme Court docket.
Aside from that, the phrases of reference ask the fee to find out the adequacy of illustration of the Maratha neighborhood in public sector employment and confirm the proportion of the Maratha inhabitants in Maharashtra.
Based on Hake, this poses an issue as a result of a restricted survey would imply there isn’t a yardstick to find out these items.
“In the case of Maratha reservation, if we have to check Maratha backwardness, then if Marathas are now backward, in whose comparison are they backward? Is it as compared to the open category? As compared to OBCs? Who has how much representation in education? Till these things are not found authentically on our dais, how will we justify our case?” he requested.
It’s for that reason that some members requested for a survey of all castes, he mentioned. “And the government was opposed to this,” he added.
Killarikar mentioned the fee had handed a decision on 12 August 2022 saying that the state wants a pan-Maharashtra survey of all castes based mostly on which it will possibly resolve on the petitions that come earlier than it.
“We also asked for Rs 435 crore of funds for such an exercise. But, despite reminders, the government did nothing about it,” he mentioned.
In his resignation letter dated 1 December — which ThePrint has seen — Killarikar mentioned that granting reservation to any part of the inhabitants, together with the Marathas, within the absence of a aggressive examine based mostly on real knowledge will “prove to be an illusion and may not sustain in the court of law”.
Present-cause notices
Killarikar advised ThePrint that the fee members had about three conferences to debate the interpretation of the phrases of reference earlier than the 2 resigned.
In addition to the “limited survey”, the opposite main sticking level within the assembly was about adopting totally different standards to find out the social and financial backwardness of the Marathas.
“To date, whatever proposals had come from different castes to us, we had used existing indicators. If we use different indicators for the Maratha community, then it will be discrimination,” Killarikar mentioned.
One other subject — unrelated to the Maratha quota — that disillusioned some members of the fee pertains to a case of Different Backward Lessons (OBC) reservation within the Bombay Excessive Court docket. Some Maratha clansmen had challenged the reservation of sure castes that fall beneath the OBC class by three public curiosity litigations. The fee had ready an affidavit to be filed in court docket a yr in the past, however it has but to be filed, Killarikar mentioned.
“The affidavit was revised again and was kept before the meeting of the commission. The member secretary was once again told to submit it, but he didn’t do it. Instead, he carried it to the CM and he said that the advocate general should see the affidavit. We objected to that, too, saying the commission is independent. Impartiality and independence is the pre-condition (of the commission’s working),” he mentioned.
Hake and Killarikar each mentioned that the state authorities despatched show-cause notices dated 22 and 23 November to at the very least three members — together with themselves — citing “weak” causes. These causes had been associated to incidents linked with the members’ work outdoors of the fee, they mentioned, with out elaborating.
The third member who obtained a discover can be considering resigning from the fee, they added.
“What has happened is that Maharashtra was progressive but now if someone says something, someone resigns, someone talks about the Constitution and the law, then that person’s caste is seen. If he belongs to OBCs, if he belongs to Vimukta Jati and Nomadic Tribes, (the impression is) he will not give the reservation to Marathas. It is all being seen through this lens,” Hake mentioned, including that he obtained a backdated discover, which didn’t give him any time to reply.
“I didn’t like answering to such a notice, so I resigned considering all the differences,” he advised ThePrint.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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