Quota benefits open to migrants in Maha, says HC

MUMBAI: In an order that will benefit migrants from other states, the Bombay HC held that a person belonging to a community that enjoys reservation in their home state can apply for reservation in Maharashtra, if the same community is included in the reserved category here. Justice A M Khanwilkar and Justice R C Chavan, heading the Nagpur bench of the HC, held that the state caste scrutiny committee's decision to reject the claim of Nagpur-resident Laxmichand Khandate wasn't "justified". Khandate, who is originally from Madhya Pradesh, belongs to the Gond tribe which is notified as a ST in both the states. The court asked the Scheduled Tribe Caste Scrutiny Committee to consider Khandate's application and verify it within three months. According to Article 342 of the Constitution, the President may notify specific tribes as STs with respect to that particular state. As per rules, a person whose parents were domiciled in Maharashtra when the state came into being in 1960 and belong to a specified caste or tribe can claim the benefits of quotas. In June 2006, the Bombay HC had, in fact, ruled that reservations in Maharashtra were only for sons of the soil and not for migrants. A division bench of Justice F I Rebello and Justice Vijaya Kapse-Tahilramani had then dismissed an application by a Mumbai-resident seeking to be included in the OBC list on the grounds that his community was in the reservation list in the home state. "The law is now well settled that the migrant isn't entitled to reservation in the state of migration but is entitled to the protection in the state of origin," the judges had observed in 2006.
3 Jun 2008, 0000 hrs IST, Shibu Thomas,TNN
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