Identification of minorities: Centre urges SC to defer hearing, says states need time for consultations

In an affidavit filed in the top court, the Union Ministry of Minority Affairs said the “Central government has already held meetings with the state governments of Nagaland, Punjab, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, and UT’s of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh…they requested for some more time for wider consultations…considering the far-reaching implications of the issue involved”.

The court is hearing a plea by Advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay who has based his petition on the SC decision in the landmark 2002 TMA Pai case in which it was laid down that for the purposes of Article 30 that deals with the rights of minorities to establish and administer educational institutions, religious and linguistic minorities will have to be identified at the state level.

The Centre had to suffer much embarrassment in the matter, initially with a bench presided by Justice S K Kaul hauling it up for not taking a stand and imposing a cost of Rs 7,500 for the delay in responding, and later, having to do a somersault regarding its stand on the issue.

In a counter affidavit filed on March 25, after repeated prodding from the court, the BJP-led government sought to put the onus of granting minority status to Hindus upon states saying “they too have concurrent powers to do so”. With the stand drawing criticism, it filed a new affidavit on May 9 “in supersession of the earlier affidavit” saying “the power is vested with the Centre to notify minorities”.

This change in stand earned the ire of the bench headed by Justice Kaul who said “they have turned turtle…It seems to an extent to back out of what was stated earlier, something we don’t appreciate…What I am not able to understand is (that) Union of India is not able to decide what it wants to do…” The court, however, allowed the Centre’s request for time to carry out the discussions and fixed the matter for hearing on August 30.

In the fresh affidavit filed on Monday, the ministry said it had asked the state governments to “expeditiously undertake this exercise with stakeholders so as to ensure that the views of the state governments are finalised and conveyed to the ministry…at the earliest” in view of the pendency of the matter in the court.

It further said that the state governments of Punjab, Mizoram and Meghalaya and UT of Ladakh have furnished their comments while reminders have been sent to the rest.

The Ministry also pointed out that the matters pending before Justice Kaul since 2020 have been tagged with a fresh plea filed in June this year.

A bench presided by Justice U U Lalit (now CJI) had on August 8, while hearing the fresh petition by Devkinandan Thakur Ji, directed that the plea be listed “along with” Upadhyay’s petition “and other connected matters in the first week of September 2022, before the appropriate court”.

Upadhay pointed out that the matter pending before Justice Kaul was already at an advanced stage but the Justice Lalit bench went ahead and directed that all matters be tagged and listed together before the appropriate court.