Maharastra issues ordinance for SEBC quota in medical courses

The politics of reservation reached a new high on May 17 when the Maharashtra State Cabinet ignored the model code of conduct for the Lok Sabha election and gave its approval to the promulgation of an ordinance to amend the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes Act in order to ensure reservation for Maratha students in postgraduate medical and dental courses this year.

On May 20 Governor Ch. Vidyasagar Rao signed the Maharashtra State Reservation (of seats for admission in educational institutions in the State and for appointments in the public services and posts under the State) for Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (Amendment and Validation) Ordinance, 2019. A press release from the Raj Bhavan said: “The Ordinance was issued by the Governor on the basis of the advice given by the State government to provide the benefit of reservation in admissions to SEBC classes in Medical and Dental undergraduate and postgraduate courses. There shall now be reservation in favour of the candidates belonging to SEBC classes from the educational year 2019-20 and also for admissions to other educational courses, including undergraduate courses requiring the passing of the NEET or any other National Entrance Test.”

The SEBC Act came into force on November 30, 2018, but admissions to postgraduate courses in medicine had started on November 1. Hence it was understood that the Act would not be applicable for the 2019-20 admission year. But Maratha students demanded that the Act be made applicable to the 2019-20 admission year.

Medical and dental aspirants moved the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court. The bench forbade the State government from granting the stated 16 per cent reservation to Maratha students on the grounds that the admission process had started prior to the Act coming into effect. The order said that the Maratha reservation Act did not apply for PG admissions for 2019-20.

The Supreme Court upheld the High Court’s decision. This automatically meant that the admissions made under the reservation category stood cancelled. About 250 students were affected by this and they staged a protest in Mumbai’s Azad maidan. 

The Maratha reservation issue is a hot potato at the moment drawing ire from all caste groups. Immediately after the Act came into being, Brahmins too demanded similar privileges. The Akhil Bharatiya Brahman Mahasangh said Brahmins in the State were also backward and those who worked full time as priests only had earning opportunities for 120 days in a year. The Act rankled with Dalits too.

Despite all this, the government seems to have gone ahead with the move because of the growing power of the Maratha community. It forms about 30 per cent of the electorate, it is upwardly mobile and, most importantly from a political point of view, it is an extremely united community as can been seen in the gigantic and orderly morchas it has taken out over the last couple of years. The possibility of Marathas voting as a block is real and with Vidhan Sabha elections due later this year Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’ government had little choice but to take the unusual step of getting the Election Commission’s permission to promulgate an ordinance in the middle of the seven-phase Lok Sabha election.. It did not matter that Maharashtra had already voted in the election.

Minister for Medical Education Girish Mahajan met the protesting students and assured them that after the ordinance was issued “they will get the same seats in the same branch that they were allotted before the quota was scrapped for the year by the High Court”. The State government has held that the court’s decision was based on a “technicality” and has even gone to the extent of saying that though the admission process started prior to the enactment of the Act, the actual admissions began only after the Act came into force.

In an attempt to pre-empt any further hurdles to the proposed ordinance, the State government is expected to file caveats in the Bombay High Court as well as in the Aurangabad and Nagpur benches and in the Supreme Court so that the ordinance is not challenged.