Decision to end Muslim OBC reservation is prima facie wrong, Supreme Court issues notice to Karnataka government

The Supreme Court on Thursday made a very important comment on the Karnataka government’s decision to scrap the four per cent reservation for Muslims in Karnataka. The court said that prima facie it finds this decision wrong. The Supreme Court said that Karnataka’s decision to increase reservation by two per cent each for Vokkaligas and Lingayats and abolish four per cent OBC reservation for Muslims is prima facie flawed.

Along with this, the court has issued notice to the Karnataka government on the petitions challenging the notification of the state government to end the reservation. On the Court’s notice, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta assured the Supreme Court that no admissions and appointments would be made by the Karnataka government on the basis of the notification till April 18, the next date of hearing.

Justice K. M. Joseph and Justice B.K. A bench of V. Nagaratna said that from the record placed before the court, it appears that the Karnataka government’s decision is based on a “wholly wrong assumption”. Senior advocates Kapil Sibal, Dushyant Dave and Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for members of Karnataka’s Muslim community, said no study was done and the government had no real data to scrap reservation for Muslims.

The four per cent quota for OBC Muslims has been divided between the Vokkaliga and Lingayat communities. Not only this, Muslims eligible for reservation have been classified under Economically Weaker Sections. After the decision of the state government, now the reservation limit there has gone up to about 57 per cent.