By Mohammed Siddique, TwoCircles.net,
Hyderabad : A larger bench of Andhra Pradesh High Court comprising of seven judges has adjourned the batch of petitions challenging the legality of the Muslim Reservations Act till August 18 as some necessary records were not made available to the court.
The bench also said that it will take up the appeal of the Andhra Pradesh government to vacate the stay against the implementation of four percent reservations for backward Muslim in admissions to the professional colleges on July 28.
The state government had moved the petition as the processing of counseling for admissions in to the engineering and medical colleges has already begun. The government had moved the petition in the Supreme Court but it asked the High Court to deal with the matter.
The Supreme court has however permitted the government to proceed with the counseling of Muslim students under 4% reservation quota in all professional colleges but their admission will be subject to the final verdict of the court. Under the counseling the students are allowed to chose one of the available seat in his category for which he will be issued a confirmation letter. But he will not be able to attend the classes till further court orders.
The counsels for the petitioners are strongly opposing the vacation of the stay order saying that twice in the past the reservation for the Muslim community was struck down by the government.
Seven member bench is headed by the Chief Justice A R Dave and it includes P Mina Kumari, B Prakash Rao, JSR Verma, A Gopal Reddy, V Ishwaraiah, and G Raghuram.
The state government had passed an act last year providing 4% reservations to the 15 backward group of Muslims in the state covering 85% of the population. While more than 4000 Muslim students were benefited in medical, dental, engineering, MBA, Pharmacy and other colleges last year, later the court stayed the admissions under this act.
Meanwhile the counsel for admissions in to the medical and dental colleges began in five centers all over the state including Osmania University in Hyderabad and NTR University of Health Sciences in Vijaywada. On the first day of the counseling the students who secured 1 to 1000 ranks were invited for counseling. On second day 1000 to 2000 rank holders will be covered. In the first phase of counseling which will end on July 29, students up to 7000 ranks will be covered under general category. From 26 counseling for the reserved quota will begin. This will also cover 4% quota for the backward groups of Muslims under BC-E category.
3850 medical seats and 1132 dental college seats will be filled in the first phase of counseling.