The Supreme Court Monday refused to stay the Andhra Pradesh high court verdict striking down the 4.5 per cent sub-quota for backward Muslims within the ambit of 27 per cent OBC reservations.
It also declined the government’s interim plea for permitting counselling of nearly 325 minority students by IITs under the scheme.
Pulling up the government for the way it had handled the “sensitive” issue of “minority” reservation, a bench of Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and J.S. Khehar told attorney-general Goolam E. Vahanvati “there is no objection to the reference of social, economic and educational backwardness in the government’s office memo as they define a class, but ‘minority’ does not. Why didn’t you refer it to statutory bodies like the National Commission for Backward Classes and the National Commission for Minorities?”
Describing the issue as very “sensitive”, Justice Radhakrishnan, heading the bench, said: “This is not the manner to handle such an important issue. We would have been happy if statutory bodies had considered it first... this is a constitutional issue. There could be violation of Article 15 (that deals with reservations for backward classes). Produce material to substantiate how you arrived at the 4.5 per cent figure.”
If reservation was allowed in this way, the “government might carve out another 4.5 per cent for somebody else, again without any material and study,” the court noted.