Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh High Court today (July 16, 2004) held that all actions taken by the State Government in pursuance of its order providing reservation to Muslims in admissions to educational institutions and in recruitment to Government jobs, would be subject to the court's order on a public interest writ petition challenging the validity of the said order.

The order was passed by a division bench comprising Chief Justice Devender Gupta and Justice G Rohini on a petition filed by one Murlidhar Rao today.

In his petition, Rao contended that the Government had bypassed the Backward Class Commission and issued the impugned Government order on July basing its order on a report submitted by the commissioner of Minorities Welfare.

Contending that the Government had categorised all Muslims as a single unit, the petitioner claimed the Government had not done any homework on the issue nor considered its likely impact on the other backward classes or poor Muslims.

Refuting the arguments of the petitioner, State advocate general B Sudershan Reddy contended that the petitioner was no way affected by the impugned Government order, as he neither belonged to the Muslim community nor was he a looser or a beneficiary of the order.

Reddy also questioned the authority of the petitioner to challenge the credentials or motive of the Government, which he said, had issued the Government order to redeem its electoral pledge after obtaining a popular mandate in the recent elections.