Hyderabad: Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has directed Advocate-General K. Ramakrishna Reddy to submit a report on the various constitutionalities involved in the proposed increase of reservations for STs and Muslims to 12 per cent. Based on this, the government would proceed with a legislation. Speaking to this newspaper on Saturday, Mr Ramakrishna Reddy said he would submit his opinion after going through various issues involved. Sources said there are several complications involved. Overall, there were three main points experts said could work to disrupt Mr Rao’s big plan.
1. The Supreme Court had ruled in the Indira Sawhney case in 1992 that reservations should not exceed 50 per cent. The court has subsequently struck down several orders increasing reservations beyond the limit.
2. The Supreme Court is re-examining the 69 per cent reservations in Tamil Nadu, that was subsequently listed in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution, through the 76th Amendment.
3. Article 31(B) gives a special right for inclusion of state Acts in the Ninth Schedule, giving them protection from legal review, but a nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court has decided that it can review any law passed through this Article.
But there were other provisions on which the state government could argue its case.
A. There are certain provisions in the Constitu-tion that allow proportional reservations to SCs and STs based on their population.
B. Telangana state could justify the increased quotas by stating that the new state comprised 10 districts that were earlier ruled by the Nizam and there is considerable Mu-slim population in more than half of the districts.
C. After bifurcation, the existing six per cent reservation is not commensurate with the percentage of reservation. It is said the state government can go ahead with two separate legislations which could be referred to Parliament through the President for inclusion in Ninth Schedule.
But sources said that the state government cannot go ahead with issuing an executive order providing reservations directly; instead, it should adopt legislation in the first instance and refer it to Parliament for approval. The sources added that there was an “abnormal rise” in the Tamil Nadu quota over the Supreme Court-mandated limit. Reservations total to more than 50 per cent in a few other states. Given this, it would be better to confine the total reservations in Telangana state to 60 per cent. Under the current proposal, the 12 per cent reservations each for STs and Muslims would take the quota to 64 per cent. Sources said it was not possible to implement the proposed hike in reservations without getting into legal complications.
