Category Archives: Positive Stories after Trauma/Distress (wef. February 10th, 2025)

‘I could not call myself an engineer’: How Maharashtra’s aborted Muslim quota left a Beed man without his degree for nine years

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Jawalben Village (Beed District), MAHARASHTRA :

Farukh Ilahi Sayyad completed his engineering course in 2017. It took a Bombay High Court order in 2025 for the University of Mumbai to hand him his degree, trapped as he was between a lapsed Muslim quota, a change in government and a caste validity certificate no one would issue.

Farukh Ilahi Sayyad

For nine years, Farukh Ilahi Sayyad carried the qualifications of an engineer without the degree certificate to prove it.

A beneficiary and later a casualty of Maharashtra’s brief and controversial 5 per cent Muslim reservation policy, the 33-year-old from Beed spent nearly a decade caught between changing governments, a lapsed ordinance and bureaucratic deadlock before the Bombay High Court finally directed the University of Mumbai to release his engineering degree earlier this month.

Sayyad’s ordeal traces back to 2014, when the then Congress-NCP government announced 16 per cent reservation for Marathas and 5 per cent reservation for Muslims in government jobs and educational institutions ahead of the Assembly elections. To navigate constitutional restrictions against religion-based reservation, the quota was structured under a Special Backward Category-A (SBC-A), covering around 50 socially and educationally backward Muslim communities.

It was under this category that Sayyad, then 21 years old and a resident of Jawalben village in Beed district, secured admission to Finolex Academy of Management and Technology in Ratnagiri for a degree course in electrical engineering.

The youngest son of a daily wage worker in a family with little formal education, Sayyad completed Diploma in Electrical Engineering with 72.71 per cent marks, making him eligible for direct second-year admission to an engineering course.

“With the reservations announced, I was initially allotted a Pune-based college based on the marks. However, I opted out as the fees of Rs 1.13 lakh was too high. In the second round of selection, I was allotted a seat in the Finolex Academy of Management and Technology in Ratnagiri under the SBCA category and I accepted as the fee was Rs 63,000 per year and affordable,” Farukh Ilahi Sayyad told The Indian Express from Dubai.

In July 2014, he obtained a caste certificate confirming his SBC-A status. But when he applied for a caste validity certificate in February 2015, the political and legal landscape had changed.

The BJP-led government had come to power in Maharashtra in October 2014, and the reservation policy was challenged before the Bombay High Court. In November that year, the High Court struck down Maratha reservation but permitted 5 per cent reservation for Muslims in educational institutions, observing that denying such reservation would impede efforts to bring Muslim youth into the mainstream of secular education.

However, the ordinance was never converted into a permanent law and lapsed in December 2014 after the new government chose not to preserve the Muslim quota framework.

Soon after, Sayyad said the state scrutiny committee informed him that it could not issue a caste validity certificate because the reservation itself was no longer in force.

“I made various representations to authorities but to no avail. I was told that I would be able to continue my studies if I paid the fees that was being charged for open category students. I agreed, hoping that the issue would get resolved,” he said.

Although he completed the course in 2017, the college and the University of Mumbai withheld his final-year marksheet and engineering degree because he had not submitted the caste validity certificate.

Unable to resolve the issue, Sayyad moved to Kuwait in 2018 on the basis of his diploma qualification before finding work in Dubai. He returned briefly during the Covid pandemic.

“What pinched me is that in spite of being an engineer, I could not call myself one or get the desired jobs because I did not hold a physical copy of my degree,” Sayyad said. “With companies tightening norms on whom they hired for engineering jobs, I felt it was time that I took from the state what was rightfully mine.”

Earlier this year, during a visit to India, Sayyad approached advocates Amol Ghuge and Gaurav Ugale and moved the Bombay High Court seeking release of his degree and results.

“Our contention before the court was that repeal of a law does not automatically extinguish rights, liabilities or proceedings that arose under it. We argued that withholding our client’s degree was preventing him from practising his profession and infringing upon his right to livelihood. We also submitted that the petitioner could not be penalised for a subsequent shift in the government’s legal position and that education already imparted ought to be protected,” advocate said.

The state argued that since the 2014 ordinance had lapsed without becoming law, all related government resolutions and circulars automatically stood cancelled.

Earlier this year, the Maharashtra government formally scrapped a decade-old resolution linked to the Congress-NCP government’s 2014 Muslim reservation policy in education, triggering a political sparring match between the ruling BJP and the Opposition. While Opposition parties termed the move anti-minority, the BJP dismissed the quota as an unimplemented “appeasement” measure announced ahead of elections.

In its May 6 verdict, the Bombay High Court directed the University of Mumbai to release Sayyad’s eighth semester results along with his original degree, passing and leaving certificates after recording his statement that he was not seeking the benefit of the 5 per cent reservation under the February 17, 2026 Government Resolution, and had already paid fees applicable to the open category. Sayyad also undertook to pay any additional fees, if required. Accepting the statement, the bench of Justices Advait M Sethna and R I Chagla disposed of the petition.

“It is a huge relief,” Sayyad said. “It has been a harrowing nine years trying to get hold of my degree. I do not know how many other Muslim students got admission during this four-month window and are facing similar problems. I feel strange fighting for a right that was granted by the state. In spite of not doing anything illegal, I had to suffer for nine years.”

source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> News> Cities> Mumbai / by Zeeshan Shaikh / May 19th, 2026

From Terror Suspect to Auto Driver: Faheem Ansari’s Long Fight for Dignity After Acquittal

Positive Stories after Trauma/Distress (wef. February 10th, 2025)

Mumbai, MAHARASHTRA :

Mumbai :

Eighteen years after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks shook the nation, the wounds of that night remain open for many. Families who lost loved ones still carry grief, survivors still live with pain, and for some who were falsely accused, the suffering did not end with acquittal, it followed them home.

Faheem Ansari is one such person.

Once accused of giving a map to the attackers in the Mumbai terror case, Ansari today earns his living by driving an auto in Mumbra. The charges that once painted him as a traitor were later thrown out, yet the damage to his life, family, and reputation remains deep.

“I cannot forget the wounds caused by false accusations and long imprisonment,” Ansari told Clarion India. “The support my family gave me after my release has given me the desire to live again.”

After the arrest of Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone gunman caught alive in the 26/11 attacks, investigators named two Indian citizens — Faheem Arshad Ansari and Mohammad Yousuf Ansari — alleging they had helped plan the assault. The claims were sweeping and serious, suggesting local support for a Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba plot.

But facts later told a different story.

Faheem Ansari and another accused, Sabahuddin, had already been jailed in connection with the 2007 CRPF camp attack in Kanpur. They were in custody in Kanpur at the time of the Mumbai attacks, making their alleged role impossible.

Despite this, Ansari spent more than ten years in prison before being cleared of the Mumbai terror charges. By the time of his release, life outside had changed beyond recognition.

Today, Ansari lives quietly with his wife in Mumbra. His daughter is married and settled. There are no grand plans — only the daily need to earn, eat, and survive with dignity. Driving a rickshaw is now his means of lawful livelihood.

“I forget everything when I work,” he said. “I only think about feeding my wife and living with self-respect.”

Even this simple work has challenges. Ansari has petitioned the Bombay High Court for a police clearance certificate, necessary to operate an Auto in areas beyond Mumbra. Without it, he cannot obtain the required permit from the Regional Transport Office, limiting his earnings.

“Until the police give me clearance, I cannot increase my earning,” he said. “I have no other option.” The High Court has concluded hearings and reserved its verdict.

The years behind bars broke more than his body. They shook his spirit and strained his family ties.

“There is no part of prison life that is free of suffering,” he said. “I lost hope. I even told my wife she should move on with her life.”

She refused. “She stood with me at every step,” Ansari said. “She gave me courage to wait until the end.” His parents and siblings were his quiet strength. “They never let me feel alone,” he said.

On November 26, 2008, ten alleged Pakistani terrorists entered Mumbai by sea and carried out coordinated attacks at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, the Taj Palace Hotel, Trident Hotel, Leopold Café, Chabad House, and Cama Hospital. The assault left 166 people dead, including foreign nationals, and injured more than 300. Sixteen Mumbai Police officers, including ATS chief Hemant Karkare, Ashok Kamte, and Vijay Salaskar, were killed. Kasab was captured alive by officer Tukaram Omble, who lost his life in the act.

No one disputes the horror of that night. But cases like Ansari’s raise uncomfortable questions about investigations and who bears the cost when the system fails.

Human rights groups note that poor Muslims are often the first to be arrested in terror cases, held for years, and quietly released when evidence fails — without apology, support, or repair for the lives broken by false charges.

Ansari does not speak in anger, only in tired honesty. “If I keep crying about what was done to us, it will hurt me again,” he said. “I just want to live.”

For him, justice now means something simple: the right to work, the right to move freely, and the right to be seen not as a past accusation, but as a man trying to rebuild a life stolen by mistakes he did not commit.

source: http://www.clarionindia.net / Clarion India / Home> Editor’s Pick> India / by Team Clarion / January 23rd, 2026