By Mohammed Siddique, TwoCircles.net,
Hyderabad : The Muslim community in Andhra Pradesh at large has hailed the Supreme Court’s interim order allowing the admissions in to professional colleges under 4% quota for the backward groups of Muslim community in the state.
At the same time state’s Congress government headed by Y S Rajasekhara Reddy has also heaved a sigh of relief as it was facing the unhappiness of Muslim community over not being able to keep its electoral promise of ensuring the reservations.
While the Chief Minister Reddy expressed satisfaction over favorable orders from the three judge bench of Supreme Court, state’s minority welfare minister Mohammed Ali Shabbir said that the legal victory was possible because of the keen interest of the Chief Minister.
“The verdict will benefit 6500 Muslims students in all. While 5700 students will get admission in engineering colleges, 200 students will get seats in medical colleges. Remaining will get in to MBA, MCA and other professional courses”, he said.
Agreeing that the admissions for these students were subject to the final verdict of the High Court on Muslim Reservations Act, Shabbir said that the government will make every possible effort to win the case in High Court. “We will hire the services of the best legal luminaries to fight the case in High Court where it is coming up on August 18”, he said.
Legal expert K Prasaran and additional solicitor general Gopal Subramaniam had appeared before the Supreme Court on behalf of the state government and sought the permission to complete the process of admission of Muslim students under 4% quota.
The Chief Minister said that the state government will pursue the case in the High Court with a similar determination and seriousness. “We are committed to fulfill our election promise of providing reservations to the Muslim community in jobs and education”, he said.
“Even a Muslim chief minister would not have done so much for the minority community as YS Rajasekhara Reddy has done in the state”, said Mohammed Fareeduddin, state’s minister for cooperation, pointing out that the minority welfare budget was increased to Rs 181 crore and the college fees of Muslim students pursuing professional courses like medical and engineering was also being reimbursed by the government.
Asaduddin Owaisi, MIM’s member of Parliament from Hyderabad also welcomed the verdict. He said even though his party was against the policy of government to divide the Muslim community on caste basis and provide reservations to a few groups and not to all Muslims, but it was happy with the Supreme Court order as it will benefit a large number of Muslim students. He hoped that the government will seriously fight the case in High Court and final verdict will also be positive.