Hyderabad, February 11: Blaming the Congress-led state government for not putting up unassailable arguments supporting reservation, Muslim groups have sought a Constitutional amendment to annul the Andhra Pradesh High Court order that quashed the 4 per cent quota for Muslims.
It is for the third time since 2005, when it was first formulated, that the court has struck down reservation for backward class among Muslims in educational institutions and government jobs.
The Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen has questioned the sincerity of the government, pointing out that the laws in the state were being constantly being rejected by courts whereas the quota for Muslims in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka seemed to face no problems.
Chief Minister K Rosaiah, who announced his government’s intention to appeal against the judgment in the Supreme Court, however, refused to answer questions on a Constitutional amendment.
Moulana Abdul Raheem Qureshi, secretary of All India Muslim Personal Law Board took objection to the observations of High Court Chief Justice A R Dave that reservation for Muslims was “religion-specific” and it had the potential to encourage religious conversions.
Qureshi pointed out that economic backwardness was a ground for extending reservations to Muslims as pointed out by the Justice Ranganath Mishra Commission.
Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, Congress MP from Kadapa, has promised to campaign for a Constitutional amendment. Opposition parties like the Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Telangana Rashtra Samiti have also supported the demand.
A seven-judge bench of the Andhra Pradesh high court on Monday struck down the state’s law that provided four per cent reservations for Muslims in employment and education.
The policy was being implemented since 2007. Muslim leaders point out that the judgement would deeply impact the community considering that reservation in education had a given huge fillip to students.
As many as 30,000 Muslim students got admission in various professional courses so far while about 3,000 candidates were recruited in government departments. According to the 2001 census, Muslims constitute 9.2 per cent of the 77 million population in Andhra Pradesh.
-Agencies