Criticism of Gagasan Anti-Penyelewengan Selangor (Gaps) is growing louder with a multi-religious body joining the fray to rap Gaps for claiming that only Malays and bumiputera are entitled to scholarships.

Gaps' remarks were "untenable", baseless and without support from the Federal Constitution, the Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism (MCCBCHST) said in a statement today.

"The only provision relating to special position of Malays in the Federal Constitution relating to scholarships is Article 153...

NONE "It only talks about special position of the Malays and natives of Sabah and Sarawak. Special rights is not mentioned in the article. The word ‘bumiputera' is not found anywhere in the Federal Constitution," MCCBCHST president Reverend Dr Thomas Philips ( left ) said.

Gaps, an Umno-linked pressure group, had said that only Malays and bumiputera have the right to receive government scholarships based on the Reid Commission, the five-member Commonwealth panel that drafted the nation's constitution in 1956.

MCCBCHST refuted this, saying that the wording of the federal constitution providing for a "reasonable proportion" of the scholarships to be reserved for Malays and natives of Sabah and Sarawak ruled out giving 100 percent of the scholarships to them.

15-year review

Noting that Gaps had been liberal about quoting the Reid Commission, MCCBCHST pointed out that the commission had also initially proposed a 15-year limit to the "special position" provision under Article 153.

The Reid Commission stated: "We recommend that after 15 years there should be a review of the whole matter and that the procedure should be that the appropriate government should cause a report to be made and laid before the appropriate legislature; and that the legislature should then determine either to retain or to reduce any quota or to discontinue it entirely."

Philips said: "Article 153 only allows reservation of reasonable proportion of quotas in three areas - (i) positions in public services (ii) scholarships, exhibitions, etc, and (iii) obtaining permits or licences for the operation of any trade or business.

"Thus, there cannot be quotas in other areas. Therefore any racial discrimination, for example, barring non-Malays from tenders, imposition of compulsory price discounts in favour of Malays in housing projects, blanket barring of non-Malays to public-funded academic institutions, having courses which only cater to bumiputera students, etc, are in violation of Article 153 and Article 8 (which states that all persons are equal before the law)."

The row over scholarships broke out when scores of top students did not receive scholarships to study abroad despite getting excellent results in their Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia examination.