Identify minorities district-wise: Plea in apex court

New Delhi, June 4

A PIL in the Supreme Court has challenged the Centre’s notification declaring Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis and Jains as minorities at the national level, saying it went against its 2002 ruling in the TMA Pai case that the unit for determining linguistic and religious minorities would be state.

Petitioner Devkinandan Thakur has questioned the validity of Section 2(c) of the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992, that empowered the Central Government to notify minorities, terming it arbitrary, irrational and contrary to Articles 14, 15, 21, 29 and 30 of the Constitution.

Thakur has sought directions to the Centre to define ‘minority’ and lay down ‘guidelines for identification of minorities at district level’, to ensure that only those religious and linguistic groups, which were socially economically politically non-dominant and numerically very inferior, got the benefits and protections guaranteed under Articles 29 and 30 of the Constitution.

This is the second PIL on the contentious issue. Earlier, Delhi BJP leader and advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay had challenged certain provisions of the NCM Act and the National Commission for Minority Educational InstitutionsAct, 2004.

Upadhyay has sought minority status for Hindus in Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Lakshadweep on the ground that Hindus were numerically lower in strength in these states/UTs. Contending Hindus were in minority in several states and were unable to avail the benefits of schemes meant for minorities, he also sought guidelines for identification of minorities at the state level. Taking exception to the Centre changing its stand on declaring Hindus as minority, the Supreme Court had on May 10 noted that taking different stand won’t help.

A Bench led by Justice SK Kaul had made these comments after it noticed that the Centre, in departure from its earlier stand, said the power to notify minorities was vested in it and any decision in this regard will be taken after discussion with states and other stakeholders.