Supreme Court to hear batch of pleas on identification of minorities at state level

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on Monday a batch of pleas seeking the identification of minorities at the state levelA bench of justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Ahsanuddin Amanullah will take up for hearing the petitions raising various issues related to the identification of minorities including challenging the constitutional validity of the National Minority Commission Act 1992 and the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutes Act 2004The pleas include the one filed by advocate Ashwini Upadhyay who has sought directions for framing guidelines for the identification of minorities at the state level contending that Hindus are in minority in 10 statesOn January 17 the top court had expressed displeasure over six states and Union Territories UTs including Jammu and Kashmir not submitting their comments to the Centre on the issue of identification of minorities at the state levelWe fail to appreciate why these states should not respond We give the last opportunity to the central government to obtain their responses failing which we will presume that they have nothing to say the top court had saidAttorney General R Venkataramani appearing for the Centre had referred to the status report filed by the Ministry of Minority Affairs which said that 24 states and six UTs have so far furnished their comments on the issueThe status report filed in the apex court on January 11 2023 said that comments from six states and UTs Arunachal Pradesh Jammu and Kashmir Jharkhand Lakshadweep Rajasthan and Telangana are still awaitedOn November 22 last year the Centre told the top court that it has held consultative meetings with all state governments UTs and other stakeholders on the issue of identification of minorities at the state level and 14 states have furnished their views so farIn its status report the ministry has said that the last reminder was sent on December 21 to these six states and UTs which have so far not given their commentsIt said in one of the petitions the petitioner has prayed to put restrain on the Government of India from placing relianceacting upon and implementing the Sachar Committee report submitted on November 17 2006 for runninginitiating any schemes in favour of Muslim community or for any other purposeThe status report said that a petition with the same subject matter is pending adjudication before the apex courtThe ministry has said that apart from state governments and UTs it held consultative meetings with other stakeholders including the Ministry of Home Affairs the Ministry of Law and Justice the Ministry of Education the National Commission for Minorities NCM and the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions NCMEIAll the ministriesdepartments have sent their viewscomments said the status report which also annexed the copy of replies received from these ministries or departmentsThe ministry said 24 state governments including Andhra Pradesh Assam Bihar Chhattisgarh Karnataka Kerala Madhya Pradesh Maharashtra Punjab Meghalaya Mizoram Manipur Odisha Sikkim Uttarakhand Nagaland and Himachal Pradesh have furnished their viewsOthers are Haryana Gujarat Goa West Bengal Tripura Uttar Pradesh Tamil Nadu and six Union Territories namely Ladakh Dadra amp Nagar Haveli and Daman amp Diu Chandigarh NCT of Delhi Andaman amp Nicobar islands and PuducherryAlso Read Godhra train burning case SC to hear pleas of Gujarat govt convicts on MondayDuring the earlier hearing Upadhyay had told the bench that he has challenged the validity of section 2f of the National Commission for Minority Education Institution Act 2004Terming section 2f of the Act which empowers the Centre to identify and notify minority communities in India as manifestly arbitrary irrational and offending his plea has alleged that it gives unbridled power to the CentreUpadhyay had earlier referred to a 2007 judgement of the Allahabad High Court on a plea seeking the quashing of the May 2004 order passed by Uttar Pradesh recognising 67 madrassas for grantinaidHe had said the high court verdict of 2007 has not been challengedCan minority status be decided districtwise How can that be done the bench had earlier observed during the hearingOn May 10 last year the apex court expressed displeasure over the Centres shifting stand on the issue of identification of minorities including Hindus at the state level and directed it to hold consultations with the states within three monthsIn supersession of its earlier stand the Centre had told the apex court that the power to notify minorities is vested with the Union government and any decision about the issue will be taken after discussion with states and other stakeholdersThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in 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