The Supreme Court on Thursday issued a notice to the Karnataka government on pleas challenging the state government’s notification scrapping 4% OBC reservation for Muslims.
A bench of Justices KM Joseph and BV Nagarathna said from the records tabled before the court it appears that the Karnataka government’s decision is based on “absolutely fallacious assumption”. The matter will now be heard on Tuesday.
The bench also said that the decision’s prima facie appeared to be on a “highly shaky ground” and “flawed”.
No Appointments & Admissions Under Reservation Till Next Hearing
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said the constitution does not provide religion-based reservation. He assured the Supreme Court that no admission and appointment will be done by the Karnataka government on the basis of the notification till the next date of the hearing.
SG Mehta sought some time to file replies to the petitions and assured the bench that no appointments and admissions will be made in the meantime based on the March 24 government order which has been challenged by the petitioners.
Senor advocates Kapil Sibal, Dushyant Dave and Gopal Sankarnarayanan, appearing for members of the Muslim community from Karnataka said no study was conducted and there was no empirical data available with the government to scrap the quota for Muslims.
Recently, the state government led by Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai decided to scrap the 4% reservation for Muslims.
The Karnataka government announced two new categories for reservation in jobs and education and scrapped the four per cent quota for Other Backward Classes (OBC) Muslims.
The four per cent OBC Muslim quota has been divided between the Vokkaligas and Lingayats. Muslims eligible for quota have been categorised under economically weaker sections now. The state government’s decision has pushed the reservation limit to around 57 per cent now.
(With PTI inputs)
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