The Telangana Assembly has passed a Bill to raise the reservation for Muslims and Scheduled Tribes in admission to educational institutions and government jobs from 4% to 12% and 6% to 10% respectively.

Need for the Bill

• 12.68 per cent population of the community in the State is Muslim.
• Reservation for Muslims backed by the recommendations of the State Backward Classes Commission and the Sudhir commission that the quota for the community could be in the range of 9 to 12 per cent.
• Decision of the government to extend 12 per cent reservation to Muslims promise of the ruling TRS in its election manifesto.

The Bill

• 7 percentage point hike for Muslims as the community already enjoys 5 per cent reservation in listed Backward Classes of the State under group `E’ though the matter is pending in the Supreme Court.
• Once the bill becomes the act, the existing reservations in Telangana under all the categories will go up to 62 percent from the present 49.5 percent.
• At present the Scheduled Castes (SCs) have 15 percent quota, Scheduled Tribes(STs) have 7.5 percent quota and the Backward Castes (BCs) including BC-E enjoy 27.5 percent reservations.

Issues about the bill

• Court had ruled in the Indra Sawhney (Mandal case) that the percentage of reservation should not exceed more than 50%.
• 76th Amendment Act placed Tamil Nadu 69% reservation to different social castes under the 9th Schedule of the Constitution to make it beyond judicial scrutiny.
• A Constitution Bench in 1997 had held that even those laws placed under the 9th Schedule were liable to be struck down as illegal if it violated the basic features of the Constitution.
• Currently Tamil Nadu 69 ,Jharkand 60, Maharashtra 52 havin greservation more than 50%

Source : The Hindu, Wikipedia

GS II : Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation