HC extends stay on law for quota to Maratha by six months

The Bombay High Court today extended for another six months its stay on a state law which seeks to reserve 16 percent seats for the Marathas in government jobs and educational institutions.
The court also allowed the government to forward its data on the social and educational status of the Marathas to the recently set up State Commission for Backward Classes to examine if the reservations for the Maratha community in state jobs and educational institutions would be justified .
The division bench of Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice G S Kulkarni today refused to vacate the stay it had imposed in April last year, restraining the government from implementing the quota for eleven months.

The bench extended the stay on the law after the government informed it today that the 11-month stay period was over.
The government had yesterday sought the court's permission to place the data it had collected before the Commission "for its scrutiny, verification and recommendations about the social and educational backwardness and eligibility for reservation of the Maratha community."
The judges said the government did not need the court's permission to do that.
The court was hearing a bunch of petitions challenging the erstwhile Congress-NCP government's 2014 decision to grant reservations to the politically dominant Maratha community.
A few petitions supporting the reservations were also filed in the HC. The bench adjourned the hearing on the plea to an unspecified date in June.