The Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed the implementation of the Maharashtra State Reservation for Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC) Act 2018, and referred the issue to a bench of five judges or more for the final adjudication. The Act provides reservation in education and employment to the Maratha community.
Justices L. Nageswara Rao, Hemant Gupta and S. Ravindra Bhat held that no appointments and admissions based on the Maratha quota will be made for 2020-21, however, the postgraduate admissions taken place already will not be altered.
At a press conference held in Delhi, NCP chief Sharad Pawar expressed his views on the questions asked about various developments in Maharashtra and the country.
On the stay on Maratha reservation, NCP chief Sharad Pawar remarked, "I think that the state government has decided to come up with an ordinance. I have not examined it through the legal prism. In my understanding of the law, an ordinance can be an option."
He added, "I don’t think there is any difference between the Centre and the state on this issue. In Parliament, we have enacted a law mandating a 10% reservation for EWS above the 50% reservation ceiling. The expectation was that the court would take a different decision taking into account the Parliament’s action."