The Supreme Court's decision to stay the Andhra Pradesh High Court's orders quashing the Muslim Reservation Act scrapping 4 per cent reservations for backward groups of Muslim minority in the state has come as a big relief to the state government.
Chief Minister K Rosaiah and leaders of all political parties except Bharatiya Janata Party have hailed Thursday's interim orders of the three judge bench of Supreme Court allowing the state government to continue with the 4 per cent quota for 14 backward groups of the community.
The chief minister welcoming the orders stressed that the state government was very much sincere about the welfare of the minority community. He expressed hope that even the final verdict of the apex court will be favourable.
Mohammed Ali Shabbir, a senior Congress leader and former minister for minority welfare, said he was thankful to Almighty for this important success.
"This is the result of the prayers of 45,000 boys and girls who got admission under reservation quota since 2004 and about 600 people who got jobs. Ever since the five judges of high court struck down the reservations for Muslims, these people were worried about their future," he said.
"From the beginning we have been arguing that this reservation is not based on religion but on the basis of social and economic backwardness. This success came because of the hard work by our lawyers specially Mr Prasaran and close coordination among all of us," he said.
Referring to the arguments before the Supreme Court, he said that so far a non Muslim Dhobi (washerman) was getting all the benefits of reservations but a Muslim Dhobi was deprived of the same.
"This discrimination on religious basis was continuing for the last 60 years and Prasaran argued that this should end now as both the persons had the same social status."
The member of Lok Sabha from Hyderabad and president of Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) Asaduddin Owaisi also welcomed the Supreme Court orders.
"It is certainly a huge step forward. It is not a small thing that the Supreme Court has granted stay against the verdict of five judges of the high court. It has saved an academic year of thousands of students," he said.
Owaisi said it is now for the central government to take meaningful steps to implement the Ranganath Mishra commission report, which has recommended 10 per cent reservations to Muslims.
"The supreme court order shows that there is no bar on providing reservations to Muslims as they were the most backward as shown in several commissions reports. Similarly, the central government should also give sub quota to Muslim women in 33 per cent reservations for women in Parliament and state assemblies," he said.
