The Supreme Court on Friday refused to stay the Andhra Pradesh HC order quashing the state government’s decision to shift a backward community from one group to another to rationalise reservation.
A bench headed by Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia said any order given at this juncture would adversely affect students who were midway through the admission process.
The HC had on November 3, 2009, quashed an order (GO Ms No 15) issued by the government in February 2009 bringing the Mudiraj community from D group of backward classes to A group. As per the state’s reservation scheme, the communities placed in A, B, C and D groups are provided 7, 10, one and 7 per cent reservation respectively.
The dispute had arisen following claims by the Mudiraj Mahasabha and Hakkula Porata Samiti that they had been placed in wrong groups and deprived of proportionate benefits in reservation.
Hearing the appeal filed by the state against the HC order, the bench, which also comprised of Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar, asked whether the admission process was over. When the court was informed that it was not fully over, the CJI said, “We don’t want to disturb it. At this stage we don’t want to create any problem for the students.”
The senior advocate, Mr T.R. Andhyarujina, appearing for some of the petitioners, questioned the rationale of the government decision for shifting of the communities. “Too many people are coming in one group creating problem to the communities already listed in that group,” he said.
Lawyers appearing for other groups also said that there should first be a study of different groups before such shifting can be done.
It was explained to the top court that the state had created ABCD categories to implement OBC quota in a “rationalised” manner on the recommendation of Anantharaman Commission in 1970.
The solicitor general, Mr Gopal Subramaniam, also submitted that the inter-group adjustments had not changed the percentage of the quota already allotted to a particular group.
While quashing the order, the HC had in principle accepted the state’s stand that periodic review by backward class commission should be done for inclusion and exclusion of certain groups from a particular category, but it wanted to know why increase and decrease in the sub-quota percentage for a particular group was not done in same proportion.
0 comments:
Post a Comment