Maratha quota: Supreme Court to hold day-to-day hearing

The Supreme Court on Tuesday indicated to start day-to-day hearing on a plea related to granting reservation in jobs and education to empower the Maratha community in Maharashtra.

A bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao, Hemant Gupta and S Ravindra Bhat put the matter arising out of the Bombay High Court's order approving quota, for passing interim order for implementing the quota this year, next week.

Senior advocate Shyam Divan sought a direction for conducting physical hearing in the matter with all precautions. The court asked the parties to decide among themselves about the allocation of time for arguing counsel. The court further said it may decide about day-to-day hearing next month.

The top court had on July 12, 2019 directed that the Maratha reservation in jobs and education can't be applied with retrospective effect.

Jaishri Patil and others challenged the validity of the high court's June 27 order for applying 12 to 13% quota since 2014. The petitioners claimed that the decision had breached the 50-per cent ceiling on reservation fixed by the apex court in its landmark judgment by the nine-judge bench in the 'Indra Sahwney' case (1992), also known as the "Mandal verdict".