The Bombay High Court on Wednesday directed activist Manoj Jarange-Patil and the organisers of the Maratha quota protests in Mumbai to file affidavits in response to allegations of large-scale damage to public property during the five-day agitation, Live Law reported.

Jarange-Patil had launched a hunger strike on August 29 to reiterate his demand for reservations in government jobs and education for the Maratha community under the Other Backward Classes category.

On Tuesday, the Maharashtra government issued a resolution granting Kunbi status to Marathas of Marathwada, following which Jarange-Patil ended his fast.

The Kunbis form a sub-caste within the Maratha community. They are included in the Other Backward Classes.

Jarange-Patil has demanded that Kunbi caste certificates be provided to all Marathas.

On Wednesday, a division bench of Acting Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Aarti Sathe said that Jarange-Patil and other protest organisers must respond to petitions alleging vandalism during the agitation, The Hindu reported.

The court also questioned the Maharashtra government about who would pay for the alleged damages.

Jarange-Patil’s lawyers told the court that no public property had been damaged.

In response, the bench said: “You are denying it, but there are photos of policemen injured.”

“You file an affidavit stating that you [Jarange-Patil and other organisers] were not the instigators,” The Hindu quoted the bench as saying. “You have to say you are not responsible for any damage and did not instigate the protestors. Everything done is voluntarily by the protesters.”

On Sunday, protesters allegedly assaulted a passenger and vandalised a bus at the Juhu depot.

A day later, the High Court directed Jarange-Patil and his supporters at Mumbai’s Azad Maidan to vacate the streets and help restore normalcy by Tuesday.

The protests had brought traffic to a standstill in parts of the city.

Quota demand

The Maratha community’s long-standing demand for reservations in education and government jobs resurfaced in 2023 with protests led by Jarange-Patil. The movement witnessed violence, suicides and the resignations of legislators.

In February 2024, Maharashtra’s Legislature passed a bill allowing for the creation of a 10% quota in education and government jobs for the Marathas. This would be in addition to the state’s 52% reservation quota, which includes a 10% quota for the Economically Weaker Section.

In August 2024, justifying its recommendation for the 10% quota for Marathas, the Maharashtra State Backward Class Commission told the High Court that the community had been “pushed to the dark edges of mainstream society”.

The introduction of the 10% quota is similar to the 16% reservation for Marathas under the Other Backward Classes category that was introduced in 2018 by the state government at the time comprising the Bharatiya Janata Party and the undivided Shiv Sena.

That decision was blocked by the Supreme Court in 2021, citing the 50% cap on a state’s total reservations that the court had ordered in 1992. The court said that there were no “exceptional circumstances” or “extraordinary situation” in Maharashtra for the state government to breach the limit on reservations.

Jarange-Patil has insisted that reservations for Marathas be given under the Other Backward Classes category, on the grounds that the separate quota exceeds the constitutional ceiling of 50% and would likely be struck down by the judiciary.

This was the ninth protest led by Jarange-Patil in the past two years.

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