AP High Court referred Muslim Quota Bill to a larger bench

A five member bench of the AndhraPradesh High Court on Thursday referred the MuslimReservation Bill case to a seven-member bench. This is the first time that a seven-member bench will beconstituted in the High Court.The bench will examine seemingly contrary observationsin the Archana Reddy case (when the AP High Courtstruck down 5 per cent reservations for Muslims) besides Indira Sawhney and Sourab Chandra cases in the Supreme Court.
While referring the batch of writ petitions filed againstand in favour of the four percent reservations to certainbackward groups among muslim community, a larger bench comprising Justice T Meena Kumari, Justice B Prakash Rao, Justice DSR Varma, Justice A Gopal Reddy and Justice V Eswaraiah made certain observations.
The bench observed: "Since the judgement in ArchanaReddy case emanated from a co-ordinated bench of a five judges of this court and since there is no provision in the Statute for publication of the criteria including the correctness or propriety of any court to lay down any such criteria specifically, the observation as contained in the judgement and other observations made by the largerbench are contrary to the observations made by the supreme court in Indira Sawhney case, wherein it was left open for the concerned authorities to lay down the criteria apart from contrary to the principles laid down inregard to strict scrutiny approach as laid down in Sourab Chandra versus Union of India and also the principles laid down in other decisions of the supreme court".S Satyanarayan Prasad, senior counsel for the BC Commission submitted to the court that the supreme court had left the procedure for identification of backwardness among the various communities and castes to the BC Commission.The batch of cases will now be listed before the Chief Justice who would accordingly constitute a bench for consideration of the questions raised by the five member bench.