Maha planning 5% quota for Muslims in education: Min

MUMBAI:THE Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government will introduce a law to set apart 5% of admissions in educational institutions for Muslims, the state’s minorities development minister Nawab Mallik said on Friday.

“Five percent reservation for Muslims in educational institutions can be implemented. A law to the effect will be brought as soon as possible,” Malik said in the Maharashtra legislative council, in response to a question by Congress legislator Sharad Ranpise over reservation for the Muslim community introduced by the Congress-nationalist Congress Party government in 2014.

The Bombay high court had in November 2014 struck down reservations for Marathas in government jobs and educational institutions and Muslims in jobs, but allowed the state to provide a quota for Muslims in education. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-SHIV Sena government chose not to earmark a quota for Muslims in educational institutions after it came to power in 2014.

Malik also told the House that the Shiv Sena was on the same page as its partners, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party, on the issue. Shiv Sena leader and he state’s urban development minister Eknath Shinde later told reporters that a decision on the issue was yet to be taken.

“The decision on the reservation will be taken by the leaders of the three ruling parties together after due deliberation. Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray will take an appropriate decision in this connection at right time,” he said.

The state government already has 74 % for various sections in education and 75% in government jobs. It includes 12% for the Maratha community as an Educationally and Socially Backward Class (ESBC) in education and 13% in jobs as well as a 10% quota for economically weaker section introduced by the Centre last year. If the state government sets apart 5% of seats in educational institutions, quotas will reach 79% in Maharashtra.

Constitutional experts have expressed doubts over the sustainability of the legislation when it is introduced in Maharashtra, given that similar reservations have been struck down by the courts elsewhere for various reasons in the past.