AP High Court reserved its order on Muslim bill

By S A Ishaqui

Hyderabad, March 25 : A larger benchof the Andhra Pradesh High Court reserved its order on the Muslim Reservation Bill on Wednesday.
The bench comprising Chief Justice Anil R. Dave, Justice T. Meena Kumari, Justice B. Prakasha Rao, Justice D.S.R. Varma, Justice A. Gopala Reddy, Justice V. Eswariah and Justice Goda Raghu Ram, declared that the arguments were over on a batch of writ petitions filed in support of and against the state government providing reservations for some sections of the Muslims.
The bench also permitted the petitioners and the respondents to submit their written arguments within a week.
The writ petitions were filed in August 2007. A five-member bench heard the arguments and later decided to refer the case to a larger bench. Subsequently, the case was referred to the seven-member bench in January 2008.
The petitioners argued that the report of the Andhra Pradesh Commission for Backward Classes was erroneous and all the directions in the earlier judgments were violated.
They raised various other contentions about the action of the government in choosing the Muslim community when applications from 125 other groups from the Hindu community were pending.

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.

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.

HC to set up largest-ever bench

Hyderabad, Jan. 22: The Andhra Pradesh High Court is likely to constitute a seven-member constitution bench to hear a batch of writ petitions filed in support of and against the four per cent reservations to backward groups among Muslim community.
Sources said that this would be the first time that a seven-member bench was being constituted by the AP High Court to hear a case. A larger bench of the High Court comprising Justice Meena Kumari, Justice B. Prakash Rao, Justice D.S.R. Varma, Justice A. Gopal Reddy and Justice V. Eswaraiah, is presently hearing the batch of petitions relating to the reservation issue. On Tuesday, the bench indicated that they would in all likelihood refer the case to a seven-member constitution bench.
The bench also hinted that it will take the relevant decision on Wednesday. Before giving these indications, members of the bench had a serious discussion on the issue. Earlier, the bench heard the arguments of Mr L. Ravichander, counsel for one of the petitioners, Mr D. Karunakar. He submitted that authorities did not have any criteria or data on the backwardness of the Muslim groups. He told the court that the petitioner had submitted an application on May 22, 2007, seeking the information collected by the backward class commission on Muslim groups. But the commission replied that it did not have any data. The petitioner again submitted an application on June 29 seeking the information and the commission replied once more that it did not have the relevant data. "When the commission does not have any data, then on what basis did it recommend that reservations be given to these groups?" asked the counsel. Mr Ravichander argued that the BC commission had relied heavily on the Krishnan committee’s report and had not independently conducted any study.