PIL before Bombay High Court challenges grant of Kunbi caste certificates to Marathas

A public interest litigation has been filed before the Bombay High Court challenging a Maharashtra government notification dated January 26 to provide Kunbi caste certificates to Marathas in Maharashtra [Mangesh Sasane v. State of Maharashtra & Ors.].The gazette notification of January 26 had sought to amend the Maharashtra Scheduled Castes, Denotified Tribes (Vimukta Jatis), Nomadic Tribes, Other Backward Classes and Special Backward Category (Regulation of Issuance and Verification of) Caste Certificate Rules, 2012. These rules prescribe the procedure for issuing and verifying caste certificates to persons of various categories.The January 26 notification contained a draft amendment to the rules, in respect of which the government has invited suggestions and objections from the persons who are likely to be affected by its decision by February 16.The petitioner, Mangesh Sasane, chairman of an organisation named the Other Backward Class (OBC) Welfare Community, claimed that through the said notification, the Maharashtra government was eating into the share of reservation for OBCs by including Marathas in OBC. .The PIL also challenged several government resolutions issued from 2004 onwards which allowed Marathas to seek Kunbi certificates. "The list of castes included in the OBC classes has time and again undergone a lot of changes without giving any justification, much less any data for the same. It therefore shows that the list is more of a convenience and that the communities included in the Maratha Kunbi/Maratha Kunbi are not in far- flung and remote areas and/or being out of the main stream of national life and there are conditions peculiar to them and/ or there are no exceptional or extraordinary condition that can be attributed to them," the petition stated.The petition has further challenged a report submitted by a committee led by retired judge of the Bombay High Court, Justice Sandeep Shinde, on the procedure for giving Kunbi (OBC) certificates to Marathas.Moreover, the PIL highlighted that the Supreme Court had earlier, in 2021, struck down Maratha reservation in education and public employment granted through the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC) Act, 2018.