The Supreme Court of India on Tuesday issued a notice to the Centre seeking its reply to a petition asking the apex court to define the term ‘minority’ and issue necessary guidelines for its identification. The petition also seeks the granting of the ‘minority status’ to Hindus in nine states.
The Supreme Court also sought the Central Government’s reply to the petitioner’s request for the transfer of various petitions seeking grant of minority status to Hindus in nine states, which are pending in respective High Courts, to the Supreme Court.
The petition, filed by advocate and BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyaya, challenges the validity of section 2(C) of National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992, which gives unfettered power to the Centre to arbitrarily declare any community a minority. The petition says that Hindus are a minority in nine states of the country ― Ladakh, Mizoram, Lakshadweep, Jammu and Kashmir, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Punjab and Manipur. Despite this, the minority Hindu populace are not getting the benefit of ‘minority status’.
The petition further states that the Central Government has declared Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains as minorities under Section 2 (c) of the Act but it has not declared Jewish and Bahais as minority.
“Legitimate share of the minorities is being siphoned off arbitrarily to unqualified sections of the population, because of non-identification and non-notification of minorities at State level,” the petition said.
Upadhyaya, in his petition, also stated that the minority welfare schemes are not being appropriately used in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Goa, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Lakshadweep, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
The denial of minority rights to real minorities and arbitrary and irrational disbursement of minority benefits to the majority infringes upon the fundamental right to the prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth, the petition says.
The 2002 Bench of eleven judges of the Supreme Court, while interpreting the Act of 1992, had said that minorities are considered on a linguistic or religious basis. The petition argues that states have been recognized on linguistic basis, so the status of minority should be state-wise and not at the national level.
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