Maharashtra govt revokes 5% reservation for Muslims in education, jobs citing lapsed 2014 ordinance

In what snowballed into a major political issue in Maharashtra, the BJP-led Maha Yuti government revoked an old government resolution (GR) giving 5 per cent reservations to Muslims in jobs and education.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has not commented on the development so far.

As soon as the GR came to light, the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi constituents slammed the government for being anti-minority.

In 2014 when the Congress-NCP Democratic Front government was in power — with Prithviraj Chavan as the Chief Minister and NCP’s Ajit Pawar his deputy.

The Muslims were put under the Socially and Educationally Backward Class (SEBC) category, were given reservation in educational institutions, semi-government and government jobs - and a government resolution (GR) was issued to facilitate an ordinance and grant reservation as SBC-A category.

Incidentally the scrapping of the resolution comes days after the death of Ajit Pawar, who temporarily held the Minority Affairs and Auqaf portfolios.

It may be recalled, the ordinance faced legal challenges in the Bombay High Court, which issued a stay on November 14, 2014.

Because the ordinance was not passed into law by the Maharashtra legislature by the deadline of December 23, 2014, it automatically lapsed. Subsequently, the Supreme Court invalidated the reservation by cancelling it during the hearing of a Special Leave Petition against the Bombay High Court’s order.

The Social Justice Department issued a GR on Tuesday night, formally scrapping the quota that applied to admissions in educational institutions and recruitment in government and semi-government services.

Opposition slam government

The Congress has slammed the BJP-led government alleging that it is anti-minority with former minister Naseem Khan leading the charge.

“This decision amounts to injustice against minorities. By cancelling the reservation, the BJP government has committed the sin of preventing minorities from joining the mainstream of development. This once again shows that the BJP government is anti-backwards class and anti-minority,” said Khan, a Congress Working Committee member Naseem Khan.

“In 2014, the Congress-led alliance government had issued an ordinance granting 5 per cent reservation in education and jobs to the backward sections within the Muslim community. However, the subsequent Devendra Fadnavis government did not take any further decision on that ordinance. The Bombay High Court had granted an interim order for 5% educational reservation for backward sections among Muslims, and it was implemented in the 2014–15 academic year. Later, the BJP government did not implement the court’s order. We kept raising this issue consistently, and at that time the BJP government had given assurances, but those were not fulfilled,” he said.

Khan also said that the BJP government has shut down all schemes started by the Congress-led alliance for minorities. Scholarships for students were started, but the BJP government is not providing them.

Mumbai Congress president and Mumbai North-Central MP Prof Varsha Gaikwad said that the decision of the government is unfortunate.

“he Social Justice and Special Assistance Department of the Maharashtra Government issued an extremely unfortunate Government Resolution on February 17, 2026. Through this decision, all previous Government Resolutions and circulars regarding the issuance of caste certificates and caste validity certificates to persons falling under the Special Backward Category-A within the Muslim community have been officially revoked. In other words, the reservation provided to the Muslim community has been canceled,” he said.

NCP (SP) MP Working President Supriya Sule questioned the state government over the withdrawal of the Muslim quota. “Reservation is something that is given rightfully to people; it’s a right from the Constitution of India. So why has this government withdrawn it?,” he asked.

NCP (SP) leader and national spokesperson Clyde Crasto said: “The BJP led Maharashtra Government's decision to revoke 5 per cent reservation to Socially and Educationally backward Muslims proves that BJP does not value Muslim leaders of BJP and their allies. It also shows that these Muslim leaders are incapable of getting justice from BJP for their own”.

AIMIM leader Imtiyaz Jaleel said: “Maharashtra govt announces Ramadan gift for Muslims by scrapping 5 per cent reservation in education.This was given after HC had noted that education dropout rate was highest among Muslims. But still we will tell our boys and girls not to leave education. Padenga India to Badega India!”

Congress leadership, Sharad Pawar forced it: BJP

Meanwhile, Acharya Tushar Bhosale, chief, BJP Spiritual Coordination Front, alleged that on the instructions of the Congress party and NCP (SP) president, Sharad Pawar, who then headed the undivided NCO, then chief minister Prithviraj Chavan took the decision to give reservation to Muslims,

“But Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has revoked that decision, making it clear that the BJP will not allow any tampering with the Constitution given by Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, because the Constitution can never approve reservation on the basis of religion,” he said.

Officer shunted

The Maharashtra government ordered a stay on minority status granted to 75 schools between January 28-30 and transferred Deputy Secretary Milind Padmanabh Shenoy of the Minority Development Department who digitally signed the certificates. He has been transferred on administrative grounds and awaits further posting. The approvals were issued in the three days immediately following the death of former Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on January 28. Pawar had been handling the Minority Development portfolio at the time of his demise. The documents show that seven institutions were granted minority status on January 28 alone, with the first clearance recorded at 3.09 pm. The number rose to 75 within the next three days, with a significant cluster of approvals on January 29. The approvals were granted under Article 30(1) of the Constitution and Section 2(g) of the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions Act, 2004. So far, it is nor clear as to whether the applications were pending prior to January 28 and whether the approvals were routine.