Law minister Salman Khurshid's deliberate interruption of debate on his own judicial standards and accountability bill to announce 4.5 percent reservation quota to the minorities led to disruption of the Lok Sabha in Wednesday evening. Angry BJP members raised slogans and rushed into the well of the House forcing adjournment for the day.

The debate was proceeding smoothly when Khurshid sought permission and read out a four-page statement on the minority reservation, explaining the background on how the government came to the figure of 4.5 percent. It was apparently an attempt to send a message to the Muslims in the poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, though the Muslim leaders in the state have already rejected the decision as they want it for all Muslims and not just the backwards among them.

The BJP members were up in arms even as the minister went on to read the whole statement instead of tabling it as per the practice during such protests. Some Samajwadi Party and BSP members were also seen protesting as they felt Khurshid was trying to address the Muslim voters in Uttar Pradesh.

Explaining the decision the Cabinet took on December 22, he said the last caste census in India was held in 1931 while the Mandal Commission extrapolated the figures over four decades to work out the OBC (other backward classes) population to be approximately 52 percent of India's total population, of which 43.60 percent were Hindu OBCs and 8.40 percent non-Hindus.

"The proportion between the two is currently approximately 1:5 because of the decadal growth of Muslims being higher compared to Hindus. Therefore, the government has fixed the sub-quota (of minorities) at 4.5 percent as 8.40 of 43.60 (in Mandal calculations) is equal to 1:5.2," Khurshid said.

He went on to clarify that this 4.5 percent sub-quota in the 27 percent reservation for the OBCs is not for all minorities but only for their backward sections. "Inclusion or exclusion in the central OBC list would be strictly on the basis of backwardness of minorities which include Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists and Zorastrians (Parsis).

The reservation will be applicable un central government jobs and services and admissions in the central educational institutions as per two notifications issued on December 22 by the ministries of personnel and human resources development, he said.

The minister also asserted that there will be no constitutional hurdle in implementing the sub-quota for minorities since "it is apparent from the judgement of the supreme court in Indira Swahney case that the government is within its legitimate rights to make sub-categorisation amongst castes/communities included in the broad category of OBC."

He went on explaining the recommendations in this regard made by the national commission for religious and linguistic minorities headed by retired chief justice of India Ranganath Misra that "minorities, especially Muslims, are under-represented and sometimes wholly unrepresented in government employment." The commission recommended that 15 percent of posts in all cadres and grades under the central and state governments should be earmarked for the minorities, 10 percent of them for the Muslims.

Khurshid also referred to the recommendations of a high-level committee headed by retired Delhi high court chief justice Rajinder Sachar in 2005 to report on social, economic and educational status of Muslims in India. In its report submitted in November 2006, it brought out the relative deprivation of the Muslims in the country and made specific recommendations on "affirmative action" through separate reservation, the minister added.