By IANS
Hyderabad : Andhra Pradesh Wednesday decided to reserve four percent of government jobs and seats in state-run educational institutions for 15 (15) socially and educationally backward classes among Muslims.
Ignoring an edict issued by Islamic seminaries against the division of Muslims into castes for providing reservations, the state cabinet decided to bring an ordinance to implement four percent reservations for backward Muslims.
"The government will soon bring an ordinance and implement the reservations from this academic year (2007-08)," said Minority Welfare Minister Mohammed Ali Shabbir.
With the courts setting aside earlier government orders to provide five percent reservations to the entire community, the government this time divided the community into 15 classes and also reduced the quantum of reservations by one percent.
The cabinet accepted the recommendations made by retired senior official P.S. Krishnan to provide reservations to "15 socially, educationally and economically backward classes of Muslims". Shabbir said the government decided to create this group under list 'E' of backward classes in the state.
This will take the total reservations for backward classes in the state to 29 percent and overall reservations to 50 percent. Scheduled castes enjoy 14 percent reservations and scheduled tribes seven percent.
Syeds, Pathans, Sheikhs, Arabs, Irani, Cucthi Memon, Mughals and others, who are considered forward classes among Muslims, have been excluded.
Shabbir said that the reservation will benefit 80 to 85 percent of Muslims in the state. According to the 2001 census, Muslims constitute 9.2 percent of the 77 million population of the state.
Defending the government's decision to provide caste-based reservations, the minister said this was done as the earlier attempts to provide reservations to the entire community were struck down by courts.
"All Muslims are backward and deserve reservations but in an attempt to provide reservations to the entire community we were not able to give reservations even to one percent," he said.
Last month, six famous Islamic seminaries in Hyderabad had issued a fatwa or edict against the Y.S. Rajsekhara Reddy government's move on the ground that there is equality among Muslims and Islam does not have a caste system.
The Muslim United Action Committee (MUAC), which comprises half a dozen Muslim religious, political and social organisations, had also opposed the move.
The minister admitted that earlier attempts to provide caste-based reservations to Muslims in 1968, 1982 and 2004 had failed.
The Congress party in its election manifesto in 2004 had promised five percent reservations. Two months after it came to power, the government issued an order in this regard. But it was challenged in court by a few groups on the ground that the government could not provide religion-based reservations.
The Andhra Pradesh High Court struck down the order and asked the government to reconstitute a backward classes commission and direct it to conduct a detailed survey of the socio-economic conditions of Muslims.
On the recommendations of the commission, the government issued an ordinance in 2005 and subsequently the assembly passed legislation for five percent reservations.
The order was implemented and about 7,000 students benefited in the academic year 2005-06. However, the high court set aside the legislation on the ground that this would exceed the 50 percent reservations limit set by the Supreme Court.
The state government then challenged the high court order in the Supreme Court, which declined to give a stay on the order. The matter was referred to a constitutional bench.
"We are taking advice of legal experts," said Shabbir when asked whether the government would withdraw its petition in the Supreme Court.