THE Supreme Court has done the right thing by referring to a Constitutional bench the constitutional validity of an Andhra Pradesh legislation that grants quotas to backward Muslims, even while it has stayed the order of a seven- judge bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court which struck down the law.
The issue of whether reservations can be granted purely on the basis of religion under the Indian Constitution has grave import and needs to be settled by the highest court of the land. It is true that several states in India have been granting reservations to minorities but this has been done till now under the rubric of quotas for ' other backward classes' ( OBCs).
An elucidation of the constitutionally correct position is, perhaps, best left to the judges, but a few aspects of India's socio- cultural reality need to be kept in mind. One, the quota benefits accruing to SC/ STs and OBCs have been availed of, in the main, by people professing the Hindu religion. This, despite the fact that almost all the minority religions have backward castes and even Dalit communities— perhaps because they came to their faith through conversion.
The Supreme Court could redress this situation even as it avoids granting quotas purely on the basis of religion by laying down that certain castes in all minority communities be eligible for reservations under the OBC and SC/ ST category. In an ideal scenario economic status should be the sole criterion for the grant of quotas not caste or religion. But since our governments have not cared to draw up a list of economically weak households in India, resorting instead to the more convenient option of identifying them on the basis of castes, this policy should be made uniform with backward sections of all religions benefitting from the state's affirmative action.
