The Telangana government passed a bill on Sunday to increase reservation in jobs and education for backward Muslims to 12%, exceeding the Supreme Court’s 50% ceiling for such benefits. Backward Muslims in the new state — carved out of Andhra Pradesh in June 2014 — are already entitled to 4% reservation in educational institutions and government jobs. Also constituted an OBC Commission chaired by Justice Puttu Swamy to look into the issue of inclusion of Muslims into the OBC list. So, giving 5% quota to Muslims would take the total quota percentage to 51. Hence, we have decided to increase the quota for Muslims, treating them as OBC (other backward class),” he said.

Source: Hindustan Times April 16, 2017 13:36 UTC