Plea in SC to transfer petitions challenging minority status of five communities
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The plea, filed by BJP chief Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, has additionally requested the National Commission for Minorities to rethink the definition of minority.
A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court, searching for a transfer of all pending petitions earlier than numerous High Courts challenging the validity of the Centre’s 26-year-old notification declaring five communities — Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsees — as minorities.
The plea filed by BJP chief and advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay has urged for a transfer of the instances pending in the Delhi High Court, Meghalaya High Court and Gauhati High Court, which have challenged the constitutional validity of part 2(c) of the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992, underneath which the notification was issued on October 23, 1993.
The petition, filed by advocate Ashwani Kumar Dubey, mentioned in order to keep away from multiplicity of litigations and conflicting views, the plea has been moved earlier than the Supreme Court.
“Denial of minority rights to real minorities and arbitrary and irrational disbursement of minority benefits to majority infringes upon the fundamental right to the prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth,” the plea mentioned.
In his petition, the petitioner mentioned Hindus, who’re a majority group in accordance to nationwide knowledge, are a minority in a number of north-eastern States and in Jammu and Kashmir.
However, the Hindu group is disadvantaged of the advantages which might be accessible to the minority communities in these States, the plea mentioned, including that the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) ought to rethink the definition of minority in this context.
The plea has sought to declare part 2(c) of the NCM Act 1992 “void” and “inoperative” for being “arbitrary”, “unreasonable” and “offending“.
The definition of “minority”, in accordance to Article 29-30 of the Constitution, has left leakages in the fingers of the state, which shall be misused and are being misused for political advantages, the petition mentioned, including that the minority status be granted to Hindus in States the place the quantity of the group members has decreased.
The plea has sought the minority status for Hindus in six States and two Union Territories, the place the quantity of the group members has fallen in accordance to Census 2011.
The petition has said that in accordance to the 2011 Census, Hindus are a minority in six States — Mizoram (2.75%), Nagaland (8.75%), Meghalaya (11.53%), Arunachal Pradesh (29%), Manipur (31.39%), Punjab (38.40%) — and in the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir (28.44%) and Lakshadweep (2.5%).
“Their minority rights are being siphoned off illegally and arbitrarily to the majority population because neither the Centre nor the State governments have notified Hindus as a ‘minority’ under the National Commission for Minorities Act. Therefore, Hindus are being deprived of their basic rights,” the plea has mentioned.
It has identified that Christians are in majority in Mizoram, Meghalaya and Nagaland and there’s a vital Christian inhabitants in Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Kerala, Manipur, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, however they’re handled as a minority group.
Likewise, Sikhs are in majority in Punjab and there’s a vital Sikh inhabitants in Delhi, Chandigarh and Haryana, however they’re handled as a minority group, it mentioned.
Muslims are a majority in Lakshadweep (96.20%), Jammu and Kashmir (68.30%) and there’s a vital illustration of the group in Assam (34.20%), West Bengal (27.5%), Kerala (26.60%), Uttar Pradesh (19.30%) and Bihar (18%).
However, they’re having fun with the “minority” status and communities, that are actual minorities, aren’t getting their authentic share, jeopardising their fundamental rights assured underneath Articles 14, 15, 19 and 21 of the Constitution, the petition has mentioned.
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