The government will challenge in the Supreme Court the Andhra Pradesh high court judgment striking down its decision to reserve 4.5% sub-quota for the Muslim community within the 27% reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs).

Union law and minority affairs minister Salman Khurshid said the government did not add or delete any community from the OBC list of the Mandal Commission on the Backward Classes.

Addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, Khurshid said the government had announced the sub-quota after four years of analysis and study of various court judgments, particularly the Indira Sawhney verdict of the Apex Court. He, however, admitted that the government was not able to put forward facts in right perspective before the high court.

Khurshid said those in the minorities sub-quota already enjoy the OBC reservation and all that the government had done was ensure that they are not left out because of other backward classes cornering all the reservations. The reservation was not for all in the minorities, but limited to those declared backward, he added.

He said the backward in the minorities deserve reservation to be at par with others in the society and this is no appeasement. To a question on vote-bank politics, Khurshid said, “Democracy is all about votes, about reaching out to people and attempt to make people comfortable.” He said the only constraint is that such outreach should not be illegitimate.

Meanwhile, it is learnt that the ministry of human resource development held a meeting in this regard and it was decided that the government should move the SC for a stay against this order as soon as possible.

It is understood that nearly 400 Muslim boys cracked the IIT-JEE this year.