MINORITY STATUS TO HINDUS: SC GIVES MORE TIME TO CENTRE

                       From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday gave more time to Centre to state its stand on notifying the Hindus as minorities under the National Minorities Commission Act of 1992 and let the Hindus be given the minority status in states where their numbers are less than other communities.

On the Centre’s affidavit that the states can declare the Hindus as minority in their territory and seeking some more time in the matter, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Centre, said he could not go through the stand submitted by the department late Sunday evening.

After a brief hearing in the matter, the top court scheduled it for further hearing on May 10, and gave four weeks’ time to Centre to place its stand before it.

The Court was hearing a petition by Delhi-based BJP leader and advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay. His senior counsel Vikas Singh submitted: “This Act will have to go. And, they will have to come up with something like RERA, where every state will have these committees.

Singh referred to two judgments on TMA Pai adn Bal Patil that this can be done only by the states and can’t be done by the Centre at all.

The Bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and M M Sundresh, said on a lighter note that the reply from Ministry of Minority Affairs has been already carried in the newspaper on Monday.

The ministry’s affidavit said: “The state governments can also declare a religious or linguistic community as a minority community within the said state. For instance, the government of Maharashtra has notified Jews as a minority community within the state of Maharashtra.”

It said certain states, where Hindus or other communities are less in number, can declare them a minority community within its territory, to enable them set up and administer their own institutions.

Upadhyay, in his petition, sought a direction to the Centre to lay down guidelines for identification of minority at the state level, saying the Hindus are in minority in 10 states and they are not able to avail the benefits of schemes meant for minorities.

The Ministry of Minority Affairs said the allegations made by Upadhyay in the PIL that “followers of Judaism, Bahaism and Hinduism, who are minorities in Ladakh, Mizoram, Lakshadweep, Kashmir, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Punjab and Manipur, can’t establish and administer their institutions of choice is not correct”.

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