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Mumbai: A division bench of the Bombay High Court on Monday recused from hearing a bunch of petitions challenging the Maharashtra government’s decision to issue Kunbi caste certificates to the Maratha community members for reservation.

Five petitions have been filed by persons from the Other Backward Classes, claiming that issuing a Kunbi caste certificate to the Maratha community would consequently include them in the OBC category.

The pleas came up for hearing before a bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Sandesh Patil.

Justice Patil, however, said he cannot take up the pleas for hearing, following which the bench recused, without specifying any reason.

The petitions will now be placed for hearing in due course before the bench of Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Gautam Ankhad.

The pleas have been filed by the Kunbi Sena, Maharashtra Mali Samaj Mahasangh, Ahir Suvarnkar Samaj Sanstha, Sadanad Mandalik and Maharashtra Nabhik Mahamandal.

They claimed the government’s decision was arbitrary, unconstitutional and bad in law, and deserves to be quashed.

The Kunbi Sena, in its plea, claimed the government resolutions change the basis and criteria for issuance of certificates of three castes – Kunbi, Kunbi Maratha and Maratha Kunbi.

The resolutions are “vague” and would result in “utter chaos”, it added.

“The decision is a circuitous method of granting caste certificates to the Maratha community from Other Backward Classes by a confusing and vague procedure, which is inclusion of the community in the OBC category,” the plea claimed.

The government’s decision to issue Kunbi caste certificates to eligible persons from the Maratha community came after quota activist Manoj Jarange staged a hunger strike for five days from August 29 at Azad Maidan in south Mumbai.

For five days, Jarange and his supporters surrounded several vital areas in south Mumbai, drawing the ire of the Bombay High Court, which said the city had been paralysed and brought to a standstill.

On September 2, the government issued a resolution (GR) on the Hyderabad gazetteer, and announced the formation of a committee to facilitate the issuance of Kunbi caste certificates to Marathas who are able to produce documentary evidence recognising them as Kunbis in the past.

There has been restlessness among OBCs after the state social justice and special assistance department issued the GR on implementing the Hyderabad gazetteer, which will allow eligible members of the Maratha community to apply for Kunbi caste certificates.

This will enable them to claim quota under the OBC category after certificates are issued.