A division bench of the High Court comprising Chief Justice G S Singhvi and Justice B Prakash Rao, on Tuesday, admitted a batch of writ petitions challenging the 4 per cent reservations for Muslims in state government jobs and educational institutions and posted the matter for hearing before a larger bench.

The writ petitions were earlier adjourned on technical grounds.

However, the Bench did not grant a stay on the ongoing admissions to engineering, medical and other courses in various universities, saying it had not yet heard the respondents. The Bench said the admissions will be subject to the outcome of writ petitions and that the state Government had to inform all the students about the same before admitting them to various courses.

The court granted two weeks, instead of the demanded four weeks, to the Advocate-General for filing the counter. The counsel appearing before the Bench pointed to the problems in granting reservations to the entire Muslim community.

According to the petitioners, a report prepared by a committee in 1972 said that only a few sections of the Muslim community and not the community as a whole were backward.