SC adjourns AP govt plea on reservation till Oct 5

New Delhi, Sep 28 (UNI) The Supreme Court today directed Andhra Pradesh government not to make further admissions till October 5 on the basis of state government notification providing four per cent reservation to Muslims.

A bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, Justices R V Raveendran and V S Sirpurkar, however, directed the admissions that have already been made shall be protected.

Out of the 18000 candidates, 4000 are Muslims.

The apex court adjourned the hearing of the case till October 5.

It may be noted here that the state government had earlier issued notification in 2004 and 2005 providing five per cent reservations to Muslims. Both the notifications were however struck down as unconstitutional by the court on the grounds that religion based reservations were not permissible under the Constitution.

Senior counsel Harish Salve, appearing for the petitioner T Muralidhar Rao, contended before the court that the reservations being provided on the basis of religion were 'ultra-virus' of the Constitution as the categories mentioned for it cover almost 99 per cent of the Muslim population in the state and it was nothing but vote-bank politics by the party in power in the state.

Senior counsel Indira Jaisingh and Solicitor General G E Vahanvati, however, opposed the plea of the petitioner for staying the High Court judgement vide which the petition filed by the petitioner was dismissed.

UNI