The Maharashtra government’s decision to scrap a 5% reservation in education and government jobs for Muslims has been challenged in the Bombay High Court, Bar and Bench reported on Saturday.
A petition filed by a lawyer seeks to quash a government resolution issued on Tuesday that formally revoked a July 2014 order allowing 50 identified Muslim communities to obtain caste verification and validity certificates under the Special Backward Category-A framework, the legal news outlet reported.
The plea alleges the decision was “deliberate, arbitrary and amounts to discrimination against minorities,” Bar and Bench reported. According to The Indian Express, it claimed the state was “practicing racial discrimination” against Muslim students, violating the fundamental rights of both the petitioner and the broader community.
The petitioner has requested an interim stay on Tuesday’s resolution and asked the court to direct authorities to produce the data relied upon to justify the policy change, Bar and Bench said. The petition argued that no complaints had been made to the State Backward Class Commission regarding the Muslim quota and that no party had been harmed by its implementation.
“The respondent authorities are violating the rights of minorities to get modern education,” the plea added, according to The Indian Express. The petition also contended that the state’s annual allocation of more than 350 crore rupees for madrasa education “effectively withholds Muslims from mainstream and modern education” and “limits Muslim young minds in the dark Talibani ages,” the report said.
The quota was originally introduced in July 2014 by the then Congress-Nationalist Congress Party government, which announced 16% reservations for Marathas and 5% for Muslims in government jobs and government-run educational institutions, placing both groups under a Socially and Educationally Backward Classes category. The Muslim quota applied to about 50 socially and educationally backward Muslim communities, largely occupational and artisan groups, which were required to obtain caste and validity certificates similar to other backward classes, Bar and Bench reported.
The 2014 ordinance was challenged before the High Court. While the court struck down the 5% quota in jobs, it allowed reservations for Muslims in education. The ordinance, however, lapsed on December 23, 2014, after the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition came to power in the state, and no legislative effort was made to preserve the Muslim quota framework, The Indian Express reported.
The government resolution issued on Tuesday formally revoked all directions and administrative processes linked to the earlier policy, effectively ending the 5% reservation in education, the newspaper said.