Read Time: 06 minutes

Synopsis

The Supreme Court on Monday directed the PIL filed by Devkinandan Thakur challenging the National Commission for Minorities Act and seeking identification of Hindus as a minority in states where they are in minority to be tagged along with other similar matter. Court said that if the petitioner will submit exact examples then the Court will certainly look into it.

A bench of Justice UU Lalit and Justice S Ravindra Bhat said, "We'll list the matter along with the similar matter in the first week of September."

The court was hearing a plea filed by Devkinanda Thakur, challenging the National Commission for Minorities Act. The plea alleged that when the Act came into force, the Central Government arbitrarily notified Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Parsee as minorities.

Counsel appearing for the petitioner informed the bench that there is another similar matter pending before Justice Kaul.

However, Justice Bhat opined that "it may be right that the Hindus are minorities in some states but if there is a law then what should we clarify in it?"

Justice Lalit added, "There will be minorities all over, in some states one community would be in minority, in others some other community. It is not the court who should decide this. If you give us the exact example then we can certainly look into that."

Additionally, the bench while tagging the matter along with the other pending matter, said that the prayer C of the petition is against the law, and the prayer for identification of minorities at the district level is not maintainable.

To which, Advocate Ashwini Upadhyay said that it can be at State Level.

Earlier, the Court had asked Thakur to show them whether Hindus have been denied minority status in any of the States.

The present plea sought direction to define ‘minority’ and lay down ‘guidelines for identification of minorities at district level’, to ensure that only those religious and linguistic groups, which are socially, economically, politically non-dominant & numerically very inferior get the benefits.

It stated that to date followers of Judaism, Bahaism, and Hinduism who are real minorities in Ladakh, Mizoram, Lakshadweep, Kashmir, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Punjab, and Manipur, cannot establish & administer educational institutions of their choice because of non-identification of ‘minority’ at State level.

It may also be noted that there is another plea filed by Advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay pending before the Apex Court seeking minority status for Hindus in states where their numbers have gone below other communities. Wherein, the Ministry of Minority Affairs had informed the Supreme Court that the questions involved in the plea will have far-reaching ramifications throughout the country.

In addition to this, the government had said that any stand taken without detailed deliberations with the stakeholders may result in an unintended complication for the country.

The affidavit had stated, "The stand to be formulated by the Central Government with regard to issues raised in this group of petitions will be finalized after having a wide consultation with the State Governments and other stakeholders."

Cause Title: Devkinandan Thakur Ji Vs. Union of India & Ors.