Activist Manoj Jarange on Wednesday informed the Bombay High Court that the Maratha quota agitation had been called off following the resolution of issues with the state government.
A bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Aarti Sathe took note of the submission but directed Jarange to file an affidavit in response to allegations raised in petitions challenging the five-day protest held at Mumbai’s Azad Maidan.
The bench observed that the agitation had allegedly caused large-scale damage to public property. “There are some issues. Large-scale damages were caused to public property. Who will pay for that?” the court asked.
Senior advocates Satish Maneshinde and V M Thorat, representing Jarange and the organisations behind the protest, countered that no such damage had occurred apart from inconvenience to the public.
The court, however, insisted that affidavits be filed, making it clear that unless Jarange and his team categorically denied instigating the alleged incidents, they would be deemed responsible. “The affidavits will have to say that they were not the instigators. There are some serious allegations in the petitions,” the bench said.
The High Court granted Jarange and his supporters four weeks to submit their affidavits. It added that once the affidavits were filed, the court would not pass any adverse orders and would dispose of the petitions accordingly.
On Tuesday, the bench had directed Jarange and his supporters to immediately vacate Azad Maidan, terming the protest illegal and unauthorised. However, the court later allowed them to remain until Wednesday morning as negotiations with the government were underway.
Jarange, who had begun a hunger strike on August 29, called off the agitation on Tuesday evening after the Maharashtra government accepted most of his demands. Chief among them was the issuance of Kunbi caste certificates to eligible members of the Maratha community, which would entitle them to reservation benefits available to the Other Backward Classes (OBCs).
Following the announcement, Jarange and his supporters vacated the protest site after the state issued a government resolution establishing a committee to scrutinise historical records and grant Kunbi caste certificates to eligible Marathas.
