Centre moves Supreme Court over quota for minorities

The Centre has moved the Supreme Court to seek an interim order for the implementation of 4.5 per cent sub-quota for backward classes belonging to minorities in central educational institutions, a move that was quashed by the Andhra Pradesh high court.

The government filed an application pleading that it should be allowed to grant the reservation till the matter is decided by the court.

On May 28, 2012, the Andhra high court had struck down the government’s sub-quota for minorities, and had held that the Centre acted in a “casual manner”.

It had said that the government Office Memorandum creating the sub-quota was based on religious grounds and not on any other intelligible consideration.

“No evidence has been shown to us by the learned Assistant Solicitor General to justify the classification of these religious minorities as a homogeneous group or as more backward classes deserving some special treatment. We must therefore, hold that Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Zoroastrians (Parsis) do not form a homogeneous group but a heterogeneous group,” the bench had observed.

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