Mumbai, Mar 2 (NIE): The Bombay High Court on Friday asked the state government to explain as to why a separate Socially Educationally Backward Class (SEBC) was created for the Marathas, if SEBC and Other Backward Class (OBC) categories were the same.

A Division Bench of Justice Ranjit More and Justice Bharati H Dangre told senior counsel V A Thorat, appearing for the state government, that they need an explanation as to “what was the need to create another class when, according to the government, SEBC and OBC are one and same?”

The Bench said the state could have included the Maratha community in the OBC and granted them 16 per cent reservation. “Why segregate them and give them different class?”

Justice Dangre also said that while the Bench understood the contention of the state that if Marathas are put together with OBC then it will lead to overcrowding, he asked “why (there was a need for) creating SEBC for the first time, including Marathas, which you (the state government) did not bother to do for others”.

The High Court Bench was hearing the argument of the state government on the three petitions filed by advocates Jaishri Patil, Sanjeet Shukla and Dr Uday Dhople along with others, challenging the notification published by the Government of Maharashtra on November 30, 2018, to provide 16 per cent reservations to the Maratha community in government jobs and educational institutions.

Responding to the court’s query, government counsel V A Thorat said that while SEBC and Other Backward Class are one and same, the state government did not want to disturb the other class, as otherwise they “could have broken each others head”.

He said that if the government would have included the Maratha community in the OBC category, then they would have got full reservation, including the political reservation, while the agenda of the state was to give reservation to Marathas only in government jobs and educational institutions.

Thorat said Articles 15 and 16 of the Indian Constitution and Supreme Court judgment in Indira Sawhney & others Vs Union of India case gave the state government power to grant reservation.

In Indira Sawhney & others Vs Union of India case, it was had held that 50 per cent reservation ceiling cannot be exceeded, except in exceptional cases like in extraordinary situations in far-flung and remote areas and if a special case is made out.