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Govt told to
explain quota for Muslims
WSN Network
New Delhi: The Indian Supreme Court has asked Andhra Pradesh
government whether it had issued a notification excluding the
'creamy layer' (the supposedly privileged ones among the
underpriveleged) from the legislation reserving four percent of the
seats for the Muslim community in educational institutions.
Hearing a petition
challenging the validity of the state quota law, a Bench comprising
Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices R V Raveendran and V S
Sirpurkar asked the government to produce the notification, as
stipulated in the law, excluding the creamy layer. The Bench posted
for September 28 further hearing on the petition filed by T
Muralidhar Rao who accused the government of violating both the
Constitution and the SC’s Mandal judgment banning reservation on the
ground of religion.
Senior advocates
Arun Jaitley and K Ramakrishna Reddy, appearing for the petitioner,
argued that the state had earlier come out with a legislation
providing five percent reservation for Muslims in jobs, but the same
was quashed by the high court and the SC refused to stay the
judgment. ‘‘It is an effective camouflage to term Muslims as a
socially and educationally backward class (SEBC) and give them
reservation when the apex court has stayed the operation of a
similar central law on the ground that the government has not
identified the beneficiaries,’’ Jaitley said.
Reddy argued that
the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) has
categorically refused to grant SEBC status to the entire community
and the state had not carried out any survey to find out the
backwardness of the community before granting them reservation
benefits in educational institutions.
26
September, 2007
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