Muslim quota on hold in Maha

HYDERABAD: With the Supreme Court of India declining to stay the Bombay high court's interim orders, the quotas for Marathas and Muslims are put on hold. The apex court wanted to await the Bombay High Court's final order on the issue. Predictably, the Maharashtra government would have to defer its move to introduce the bills on Maratha (and Muslim) quotas in the ongoing session of the Legislature in view of the apex court's orders.
In a way, the interim orders of the Bombay High Court and the refusal of the Supreme Court to interfere with the issue remind one of the travails of quotas for Muslims in Andhra Pradesh over the last one decade. The Bombay High Court had stayed the Maratha and Muslim quotas on the ground that these exceeded the 50 per cent cap on total reservations as per Supreme Court norms. The overall quotas for SCs, STs and BCs came to 52 per cent before the then Congress-NCP government announced 16 per cent reservations for Marathas and five per cent for Muslims, raising the total quotas to 73 per cent in June 2014. The high court had also faulted the data used by the state government to justify its assertions that both these communities were backward.
Thus, the Maharashtra case seems to run parallel to the litigation over the reservations for Muslims in AP as well as the 4.5 sub-quota for minorities out of the 27 per cent quota for OBCs at the national level. It was in July 2004 that the then Congress government in AP came out with a GO earmarking five per cent quota for Muslims on the basis of their social and educational backwardness. The quota was challenged in the AP High Court, which struck down the GO on various counts, including the fact that it exceeded the 50 per cent cap fixed by the Supreme Court.
The AP government thereafter reconstituted the State BC Commission which looked into the issue. In June 2005, the government promulgated an ordinance providing four per cent quota for Muslims which was challenged in the AP High Court. The same year, the high court quashed the Muslim quota once again. Subsequently, in July 2007, an ordinance was promulgated providing four per cent reservations to 15 identified socially and educationally backward groups of Muslims on the basis of State BC Commission recommendation. This ordinance, too, was contested in the high court. In February 2010, the high court struck down this ordinance.
Thereafter, the AP government filed an SLP in the Supreme Court challenging the high court orders. Passing an interim order in March 2010, the Apex court permitted the AP government to provide the 4 per cent quota to SEBC Muslims but referred the issue of its constitutional validity to a special bench.
When the then UPA government announced 4.5 per cent sub-quota for minorities from within the 27 per cent reservations for OBCs in central government services and educational institutions in December 2011, it was challenged in the AP High Court. In May 2012, the high court set aside the 4.5 per cent quota on various grounds, including procedural lapses and lack of sufficient evidence to substantiate the socio-economic backwardness of the minorities for providing them the sub-quota. One of the petitioners was the AP BC Welfare Association.
The Union government challenged the AP High Court orders in the Supreme Court. In June 2012, the apex court refused to stay the high court orders, observing that the sub-quota did not have legislative support and questioning whether there was any constitutional and statutory support for granting the sub-quotas. Consequently, the 4.5 per cent sub-quota for minorities could not be implemented since the last three years.
Now, the SLPs relating to quota for SEBC Muslims in AP (now Telangana State and residuary Andhra Pradesh) and the 4.5 per cent central sub-quota for minorities are pending before the apex court. After the final verdict of the Bombay High Court, where the main petitions against Maratha and Muslim quotas would come up for hearing in January 2015, the Maharashtra government would have to take a call on how to proceed, depending on whether the high court quashes or upholds the Maratha and Muslim quotas.
The quota for Muslims in AP was implemented by the then Congress government to fulfill is election promise. The 4.5 per cent sub-quota for minorities was announced by the then UPA government with an eye on Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. Similarly, the quotas for Marathas and Muslims were declared on the eve of Assembly polls in Maharashtra. When genuine backwardness of communities is sought to be exploited for political expediency, the result is that it is not passing the judicial scrutiny. Nevertheless, there is a need for a national consensus on reservations for minority communities which are abysmally backward.
(The writer is an MLC and a journalist)