Maharashtra: Centre refuses to share empirical data on OBC, BCC collected in 2011
Maharashtra took a step closer to resolving the knotty quota issue that has plagued it since March after the Governor on Thursday approved an ordinance that permitted reservation for OBC candidates in local body polls even as the Centre refused to share data from the Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC) 2011, stating that the data was “unusable” for official purposes” because of “mistakes and inaccuracies”
The state took a step closer to resolving the knotty quota issue that has plagued it since March after the Governor on Thursday approved an ordinance that permitted reservation for Other Backward Class (OBC) candidates in local body polls even as the Centre refused to share data from the Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC) 2011 stating that the data was “unusable” for official purposes” because of “mistakes and inaccuracies”.
The Centre’s contention was made in an affidavit filed in response to the state’s July writ petition which came up for hearing in the Supreme Court on Thursday. The petition sought empirical caste data after the apex court struck down a law in March that granted reservation to OBC candidates in municipal body elections. The SC also asked Maharashtra to stay within the court’s previously mandated cap of 50%, and provide reservation to OBC candidates based on fresh empirical data.
“The governor sought a clarification on the ordinance. The state cabinet decided to resend it on Wednesday. I am happy to hear that the governor has signed the ordinance. I was sure that he would clear it. However, the battle for OBC reservation and its census data is long,” said food and civil supplies minister and OBC community leader Chhagan Bhujbal.
Raj Bhavan officials on Thursday confirmed that governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari has signed the ordinance. On Wednesday, Koshiyari had refused to clear the ordinance citing the apex court’s March directions.
The state sent the ordinance back to the Governor late in the evening stating that its amendment permitting reservation to OBC candidates was permissible as the reservation to within the 50% cap as mandated by the apex court.
The state will amend two legislations — Maharashtra Zilla Parishads and Panchayat Samitis Act, 1961 and Maharashtra Village Panchayat Act for Zilla Parishads, Panchayat Samiti and Gram Panchayats — to ensure this reservation.
However, the local Zilla Parishad elections that will start on October 5 in six districts across Maharashtra — Palghar, Dhule, Nandurbar, Akola, Washim and Nagpur — may not be affected by this amendment.
“Any change in the bypolls has to be done at the directions of the Supreme Court because it has directed us to hold the bypolls based on open category candidates. If there is any change for whatever reason, the direction has to come from SC. We are following their directives and can’t change on our own, state election commissioner UPS Madan told HT last week.
Following the Centre’s refusal to share caste census data citing reasons of error, the state government is expected to file its reply and the matter has been scheduled after four weeks.
OBC Welfare minister Vijay Wadettiwar said they will file a caveat in the apex court regarding the ordinance.
“We will file a caveat in the Supreme Court saying that we have promulgated the ordinance to provide reservation to the OBC community within 50% ceiling,” he said.
“Pertinently, due to several infirmities found in the aforesaid data as explained hereinafter, it was decided by the cabinet to constitute an expert committee under the chairmanship of the then vice chairman Arvind Panagariya. However, the other members of the committee were not named and the committee never met. As a result, no action has been taken on the data in the past 5 years,” the 30-page affidavit filed by R Subrahmanyam, secretary, ministry of social justice and empowerment stated.
A senior law officer requesting anonymity as he is not authorized to speak to the media said: “The central government has filed an affidavit on Tuesday in which it has refused to share the Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC) 2011. The Centre has said that the data cannot be used for any official purposes as it has several errors. It has further told the SC that they had constituted an expert committee under the chairmanship of Arvind Panagriya, the then vice-chairman of Niti Aayog to rectify the mistakes but other members were not named and thus no action was taken for rectification of the mistakes.”
“It has further mentioned several examples to prove that there are errors in the data. For example, the affidavit says that the data was collected by the people such as primary teachers who were not trained enough for the job and hence there are errors in entries etc.,” he added.
The census data is necessary because of the Supreme Court’s March ruling.
Legislation for the local bodies in Maharashtra provides reservation to the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (SC and ST) communities based on their population in those particular bodies. In case of the OBC community, 27% reservation based on last census conducted in 1931. Consequently, there are many districts in the state where the combined reservation of all the communities — SC, ST and OBC — exceeded the 50% cap.
On March 4, the Supreme Court directed the state to appoint a dedicated commission for collecting empirical data, based on which reservation for the community could be fixed. It also allowed the state election commission to hold local bodies polls, which begin on October 5 without reservation in place.
This could have proved politically damaging for the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maharshtra Vikas Aghadi coalition government. Even with the amendments to the law, seats reserved for OBC candidates would have decreased by 10-15%, from 5200 to 4500 seats.
There are five laws that govern OBC reservation in local body elections. The remaining three —
the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, Maharashtra Municipal Corporations Act and Maharashtra Municipal Councils, Nagar Panchayats and the Industrial Townships Act — fall under the state urban development department, and do not come within the purview of the ordinance.
The state has also decided to promulgate another ordinance that will provide upto 27% reservation to the OBC community in the urban local bodies such as municipal corporations, municipal councils and nagar panchayats. An ordinance to this effect will be sent in a day or two, officials said.
Separately, the state is also considering returning to a multi-member ward system where the local body will have panels of members in place of a single elected one. Experts said that this was a gambit to ensure further representation of OBC candidates.