Separate religion: High Court panel’s suggestion hangs in balance

BENGALURU: The outcome of the experts panel constituted by the Karnataka State Minorities Commission for recommendation to confer a status of religious minority to Lingayat is hanging in balance with the Karnataka High Court on Friday passing an interim order that all further proceedings of the panel is subject to the result of the public interest petitions.

A division bench of Acting Chief Justice H G Ramesh and Justice P S Dinesh Kumar passed this interim order after hearing the two petitions filed by Shashidhar Shyamsundar and Satish. The court also issued notice to State, Centre and the Commission, before adjourning the hearing to January 18.

The duo had challenged the validity of constitution of panel headed by Justice Nagmohan Das, former judge of the Karnataka High Court, by the Karnataka State Minorities Commission on December 22, 2017.
During the hearing, Advocate Gurumath, the counsel of the one of the petitioner, argued that the formation of panel is invalid as there is no statutory or constitutional provision to constitute such committee.

To a querry of the court, he further argued that there is no difference between Veerashaiva and Lingayat. It is calling them like 'India and Bharatha'. As per the supreme court order, there is no provision to add Lingayat to the existing list of minority communities either by State or Commission. In such circumstances, asking the panel to submit recommendation within four weeks is dangerous, he argued.

Senior Counsel Ashok Harnalli, who was representing another petitioner, argued that neither the State nor the Commission has power relating to conferring minority status to Lingayat, as per Article 25 of the Constitution. If panel is allowed to go ahead, the entire community will be divided. Let the panel do not publicise the report considering its ramification on the public who were already confronting on the matter and already four ministers were openly supported minority status, he argued.

Advocate General Madhusudan R Naik argued that no order as such passed on December 22 by the Commission but it was the proceedings of the meeting convened to call inputs from the agency/panel by the State, as there were political activities are going on.

The State referred the matter to Commission to evaluate the several representations containing thousands of pages by various organisations far and against conferring minority status, he pleaded.