Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi: The Centre on Saturday challenged Andhra Pradesh High Court’s order quashing the 4.5 percent reservation for minorities within the 27 percent OBC quota in the Supreme Court.
Centre filed a Special Leave Petition (SLP) before the Supreme Court and the apex court will hear the plea on Monday. A bench of justices KS Radhakrishnan and JS Khehar will examine the Centre's appeal.
The Centre contended that the Andhra Pradesh High Court had taken an “erroneous view” in striking down the provision despite the decision to provide the quota was done after an extensive survey, the petition said.
In a significant development, the Andhra Pradesh High Court on May 28 had held that the Centre acted in a "casual manner" in granting the 4.5 percent sub-quota to minorities, carving it out of 27 percent OBC reservation in the central educational institutions such as IITs.
It had said the Office Memorandum (OM) creating the sub-quota was based on religious grounds and not on any other intelligible consideration.
The December 22, 2011 OM for a 4.5 percent subquota for socially and educationally backward classes of citizens belonging to minority communities out of the 27 percent reservation for OBCs in central educational institutions and jobs was announced by the Centre ahead of the Assembly elections in five states including Uttar Pradesh and Punjab.
"The very use of the words 'belonging to minorities' or 'for minorities' indicates that the sub-quota has been carved out only on religious lines and not on any other intelligible basis," a division bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court comprising Chief Justice Madan B Lokur and Justice PV Sanjay Kumar had observed while setting aside the sub-quota.
First Published: Saturday, June 09, 2012, 17:20