No Muslim quota now : HC directs state to implement apex court stay

By Shariff Ameeruddin Ishaqui
Hyderabad, April 29: In a major jolt to the Congress government in the State in the election year, a seven- member bench of the AP High Court on Tuesday directed the state governmet to implement the Supreme Court stay on 4 per cent reservations for Muslims of backward sections in educational institutions .
A larger bench, comprising Chief Justice AR Dave, Justice T Meena Kumari, Justice B Prakash Rao, Justice DSR Verma, Justice A Gopal Reddy, Justice V Eswaraiah and Justice Goda Raghuram, while dealing with a batch of writ petitions on the quota for Muslims under the BC 'E' category , adjourned hearing to after summer vacations which ends first week of June. This means that the resrvations will not be applicable to variouscourses, including medical post graduate courses this academic year.
"We are inclined to continue the stay of admissions under "Andhra Pradesh Reservations in favour of Socially and Educationally Backward Classes of Muslims Act", 2007 relating to category 'E' till the final hearing of the batch of writ petitions since it is not possible to conclude the hearing the writ petitions before the summer vacation," the bench observed.
The bench turned down the request of Advocate-General CV Mohan Reddy to pass an interim order to approve the admissions made in accordance with the directions of a five-member bench of this court in November.
The Supreme Court passed an interim order earlier that no further admissions should be made under the Act.While disposing of the Special Leave Petitions on the Act , the Apex Court on October 12, 2007 directed the High Court to proceed with the hearing of the writ petitions and try to dispose them before October 31, 2007.
The Supreme Court observed that the High Court colud consider passing of appropriate interim order regarding admissions of students if the writ petitiones were not disposed of within that period,but said that its interim order would remain in force till then.
Based on the Apex Court directions a five-member bench of the High Court gave an interim direction in November last that the counselling for the B.Ed and other professional courses may go on but not finalise the admissions till further orders. After that the government selected students of BC 'E" category for admission into B.Ed, BL and other courses.