Supreme Court gives more time to Centre on minority status for Hindus

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday gave more time to Centre to bring on record its stand on a plea against its power to notify minorities under the National Minorities Commission Act, 1992, and also seeking minority status for Hindus in states, where their numbers are less than others. "I have received the reply… what stand the department has taken, I could not go through it," Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Centre, submitted before a bench headed by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, urging the court to grant some more time in the matter.

The bench, also comprising Justice M M Sundresh, on a lighter note, said the reply from the Ministry of Minority Affairs has been carried by the newspapers on Monday. The Ministry of Minority Affairs, in an affidavit, said:

"It is submitted that 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." The ministry said that 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.

The bench, in its order, said that the Solicitor General submits that he will place the stand on the matter on record as he has yet not vetted the affidavit, even though it may have appeared in the newspapers. To this, a smiling Mehta replied: "I have not read it… I am not aware of the view of the department."

Senior advocate Vikas Singh, representing the petitioner BJP leader and advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, said:

"This Act will have to go. And, they will have to come up with something like RERA, where every state will have to have these committees."

Singh added that the TMA Pai judgement as well as the Bal Patil judgement says it can be done only by the state and can't be done by the Centre at all. "And, this Act gives the power to the Centre to notify minorities," he said.