Hyderabad: A Division Bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, comprising Justice Subhashan Reddy and Justice Ghulam Moham, on July 6 stayed admission of SC into professional courses pending final judgment in the batch of writ peittions awaiting adjudication by a larger Bench of the court, wherein the validity of the categorisation of SCs into four groups for the purpose of reservation in educational and. employment fields is challenged.
These interim orders were passed in a writ petition filed by Dr. E.V. Chinniah, who challenged the constitutional validity of the AP Scheduled Castes (Retionalisation of Reservation) Act, 2000. It may be recalled that after prolonged agitation by one section of the SCs the State Govt. issued a GO dividing the SCs into four categories and declaring that the fruits of reservation shall be divided among the four categories. After the GO was struck down by the High Court, the State Govt issued an ordinance and a batch of writ peittions were filed challenging the validity of the ordinance. The Bench of the High Court referred the matter to a larger Bench. The present Act was promulgated replacing the ordinance. The present writ petition is filed challenging the Act. (Hindu, July 7, 2000).
(DV May 1, 2000 p.9: “DV’s caste identity thesis gets people’s endorsement“)
