The Gujarat High Court on Tuesday dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) which had demanded that the State government must collect caste data before any decision about granting reservation to the Patel community is taken.
The division bench of acting Chief Justice Jayant Patel and Justice NV Anjaria said the petition was premature. “We have to presume that the government will do in accordance with the law. This petition cannot be entertained at this stage,” said the court.
Mustak Qadri, the petitioner, had said that as per the previous judgements of the Supreme Court and other High Courts inclusion or exclusion in the reserved category can be done “only with the help of quantifiable data”.
Such data is not available because the census reports provide caste-wise figures only till 1931, it said.
The High Court should ensure that government does not take any decision without following due procedure laid down by the Supreme Court, it said.
The PIL didn’t name the Patel community, though.
Opposes quota
Meanwhile, the Maharashtra OBC Organisation has opposed reservations for the Patel and Maratha communities, citing suggestions from the Mandal commission.
President of Maharashtra OBC Organisation Professor Shravan Deore recently met BJP MP Subhash Bhamre, who is a member of the OBC MP Forum, in this regard and urged him to raise the issue in Parliament.
Deore said the Maratha community in Maharashtra, Jats from Uttar Pradesh and Haryana and Patel community from Gujarat are demanding to be included in the OBC category, when they already belong to the upper class.
“These communities are upper class landlords and rulers as they have been in power since last several years. Hence, almost all commissions including Mandal commission had suggested that these communities should not be given reservation,” he said.