Maratha quota: President could make checklist of SEBCs, prime court docket informed

Subsequent to the 102nd Constitutional modification, solely the President, in session with state Governors, can establish Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBCs) and states can present reservation advantages to solely these talked about in such a central checklist, petitioners opposing the Maratha quota regulation informed the Supreme Court Tuesday.
“While states can make provisions for the benefit of SEBC under Article 15 (4) of the Constitution, the SEBC has to be mentioned in a Presidential notification under Article 342A after the 102nd amendment”, senior advocate Shyam Divan informed a five-judge Constitution bench, headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan.
The bench, additionally comprising Justices L Nageswara Rao, S Abdul Nazeer, Hemant Gupta, and S Ravindra Bhat, was listening to petitions towards the Maharashtra State Reservation for Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC) Act, which offers reservation to Marathas in jobs and admissions within the state.

Article 342A Clause (1) says that “the President may with respect to any State or Union territory, and where it is a State, after consultation with the Governor thereof, by public notification, specify the socially and educationally backward classes which shall for the purposes of this Constitution be deemed to be socially and educationally backward classes in relation to that State or Union territory, as the case may be while according to clause (2), the “Parliament may by law include in or exclude from the Central List of socially and educationally backward classes specified in a notification issued under clause (1) any socially and educationally backward class…”