The andhra pradesh government will have to do a lot of explaining before the Supreme Court which has issued a notice to the state for its ordinance providing 4 per cent reservation for Muslims in professional colleges. The apex court notice came on Monday in response to a petition—filed by T Murlidhar Rao and K Sriteja—challenging the constitutional validity of the ordinance. Earlier, the Andhra Pradesh High Court had declined to stay the ordinance issued on July 6, 2007.

The Andhra Pradesh Reservation (in favour of socially and educationally backward classes of Muslims) Ordinance 2007 created a new group under the head “E” in the already existing Backward Classes (BCs) list for the purpose of providing reservation to Muslims. According to the ordinance, about 15 groups of Muslims would get the benefit of reservation, while keeping about 10 sub-sects outside the ambit of reservation.

Without passing any interim order, a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan sought reply from the Andhra Pradesh Government whether the creamy layer had been excluded or not from the benefit of the reservation. The court has fixed September 28 as the next date of hearing.

Senior advocate Arun Jaitley informed the court that the matter had to be heard urgently as the state Government would finalise the admission process by September 30.

Another advocate opposing the ordinance, said the state Government had failed to follow the Indra Sawhney (Mandal case) judgment excluding the creamy layer among the community from taking the benefit of reservation.

... contd.