Legal reverses haunt KCR

Getting legal cover for Muslim quota not easy: Experts

​Hyderabad: To avoid possible pitfall in the bill to enhance reservations for Muslims from 4 per cent to 12 per cent, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had stated that he would constitute a strong legal team to fight the case in Supreme Court and would seek its intervention to direct the Union government to include it in Ninth Schedule of the Constitution.

But going by the past experiences, legal experts feel that this is not so easy a task. The state government during last three years had approached the high court and the apex court on various issues but had lost the cases and the latest being the case pertaining to hereditary jobs to employees of Singareni collieries.

According to Justice (Retd) Chandra Kumar reservations have to be on the basis of Constitution and not based on whims and fancies of any government. He said the Supreme Court cannot direct the government to include it in 9th Schedule.

The government should be able to establish the socially and economically backwardness of the people for whom reservations are sought to be made. In the past, when the Congress government led by Y S Rajasekhara Reddy in the undivided Andhra Pradesh enhanced the reservations, the court struck down saying that it failed to establish the socio-economic backwardness of Muslims.

The courts will accept the data of BC commission only if it is based on proper survey, he said. There have been many instances in the last three years where the courts had struck down various decisions of the state government, he said.

BJP leader Raghunandan Rao said the government had suffered major legal reversals both in Supreme Court and High Courts on many issues in the last three years. With regard to a petition against decision of the Krishna Water Dispute Tribunal-II to limit the re-allocation of river water only to the two successor States of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, and not dabble with the share of water enjoyed by the other two riparian states-Maharashtra and Karnataka.

In 2016, it lost the case in Supreme Court refusing pertaining to sharing of assets and deposits of the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh State Council for Higher Education. The Court in March ordered that the assets be divided between TS and AP in the ratio of 58:42 on the basis of their population and if the two states did not agree for this arrangement, the Centre would constitute a committee to arrive an agreement in two months.

As part of political appointments, the Telangana government had appointed six TRS legislators as parliamentary secretaries but the High Court had struck down and stayed the implementation of GO.

Similarly, in another major setback to the Telangana government recently the Hyderabad High Court quashed GOs 123 and 124 issued by the government which provide for quick acquisition of lands from land-owners for the proposed Mallanna Sagar reservoir in the Medak district, following a petition by farmers of the region and ordered strict implementation of the Land Acquisition Act Of 2013.

The government had to face another humiliation as, the High Court in 2015 struck down the plans of the Telangana Government to restrict the fee reimbursement scheme only to the local student and exclude the Andhra Pradesh students.

The TS government in June 2014 had to roll back another decision when the High Court did not allow it to use its power in a whimsical manner by issuing a GO asking all vehicle owners of (AP registration) to register their vehicles as TS vehicles.

Chief spokesperson of Congress party Dasoju Sravan said that government had suffered nearly 20 legal reversals in last three years and the Muslim reservation bill could be another setback for it. He said the Constitution cannot be misrepresented.

If one goes by the spirit of the constitution this bill is untenable. Even the BC commission chairman is not a person with judicial background and that itself is unconstitutional, he added.