The Supreme Court docket on Tuesday stated the difficulty of revisiting minority standing of residents based mostly on their inhabitants in states can’t be postponed additional because it requested the Centre to conclude the country-wide session on this regard with states and union territories earlier than March 21.
As six states and union territories had been but to reply on this difficulty, the Court docket questioned why even regimes dominated by the Bharatiya Janata Social gathering (BJP) had been preserving silent on the identical whereas suggesting that if no response is forthcoming, will probably be presumed the involved authorities don’t have anything to state.
A bench headed by justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul stated, “We can’t be suspending the matter like this,” whereas referring to a number of events up to now when the consideration of the difficulty bought deferred for need of time sought by Centre to finish its nationwide session.
Lawyer Normal R Venkatramani knowledgeable the Court docket, “Six states and union territories haven’t given their response.”
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The record included states of Arunachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Telangana and union territories of Lakshadweep and Jammu and Kashmir.
“These are main states who haven’t responded. Let me come again to the Court docket after receiving their response.”
“We fail to understand why these states/UTs shouldn’t reply,” remarked the bench, additionally comprising justices AS Oka and JB Pardiwala.
The matter will now be heard on March 21.
The order got here on a clutch of petitions led by Delhi BJP chief Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay who questioned the minority standing being prolonged to solely Christians, Sikhs, Muslims, Buddhists, Parsis and Jains when Hindus are a minority in a number of states and UTs.
Pointing to J&Okay, Lakshadweep and Arunachal Pradesh, administered both by Centre or by BJP authorities, the bench requested AG, “Your personal regimes are usually not responding.”
Senior advocate CS Vaidyanathan showing for Upadhyay identified that a number of the non-responsive states/UTs are those the place Hindus are in minority.
In keeping with a chart in his petition, Upadhyay identified that Hindus are merely 1% in Ladakh, 2.75% in Mizoram, 2.77% in Lakshadweep, 4% in Jammu & Kashmir, 8.74% in Nagaland, 11.52% in Meghalaya, 29% in Arunachal Pradesh, 38.49% in Punjab and 41.29% in Manipur.
Vaidyanathan stated, “The Union has filed a standing report the place it’s agreed that states needs to be the unit and never the Union (for identification of minorities).”
He urged the Court docket to think about the matter within the gentle of those findings.
The petitions even challenged the validity of the 2 legal guidelines – Nationwide Fee for Minorities (NCM) Act, 1992, and the Nationwide Fee for Minorities Instructional Establishments (NCMEI) Act, 2004 for not recognising minorities based mostly on inhabitants.
The Centre has termed the matter “delicate” that has far-reaching ramifications and had thought it match to hunt particular person views of states and UTs.
This difficulty has been raised earlier than the highest courtroom earlier too.
The Centre had filed an affidavit on March 28 final yr the place it really useful dismissal of the petition terming it “untenable and misconceived in legislation”.
It went on to state that Parliament and state legislatures have “concurrent powers to enact legislation to offer for the safety of minorities and their pursuits”.
In Could, the Centre got here out with a recent affidavit recalling its earlier stand whereas proposing a nationwide session as the difficulty has “far-reaching ramifications all through the nation” and any stand taken with out detailed deliberations with the stakeholders may end in unintended complication for the nation.
The Court docket had ordered the consultations to be concluded by August 30 final yr however since then, the matter bought delayed because of a number of extensions granted to the Centre for finishing its train.