The Centre has filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the Andhra Pradesh High Court order setting aside 4.5 per cent sub-quota for minorities within the 27 per cent OBC reservation in Central educational institutes.
A vacation bench of Justices K S Radhakrishnan and J S Khehar would take up the special leave petition for hearing on Monday.
R Krishnaiah, who had challenged the Centre’s notification in the AP HC, had already filed a caveat, urging the apex court not to pass any order in the case without giving an opportunity of hearing him.
According to the Union government, the HC had taken an “erroneous view” in quashing the sub-quota provision for minorities. It claimed the decision was taken following the extensive survey.
A bench of AP HC’s Chief Justice Madan B Lokur and Justice Sanjay Kumar had on May 28 set aside the carving out of a sub-quota of 4.5 per cent in favour of backward classes belonging to minorities out of the 27 per cent reservation for OBCs.
“In the case at hand, what the Centre has essentially done is to cull out religious minorities – Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Zoroastrians (Parsis) and “designate” them as more backward amongst the Other Backward Classes. In view of the law laid down, in our opinion, one of the reasons why the Office Memorandums should be struck down is that while issuing them, the National Commission for Backward Classes has been ignored and by-passed by the Centre in culling out some categories of citizens from the OBC class. This is impermissible,” the HC had said.
The Centre had issued the office memorandums and resolution on December 22 giving sub quota reservation to religious minorities ahead of the state assembly elections.