Jammu lawyer Ankur Sharma had filed the PIL last year, seeking a Minority Commission for the state’s Hindus, other religious and linguistic minorities. (Express Photo/Premnath Pandey) Jammu lawyer Ankur Sharma had filed the PIL last year, seeking a Minority Commission for the state’s Hindus, other religious and linguistic minorities. (Express Photo/Premnath Pandey)

Stating that it cannot direct the legislature to make laws, the Supreme Court on Monday gave more time to the Centre to respond to a plea that raised the question of whether the Muslim majority of Jammu and Kashmir could be treated as a minority for the purpose of availing of benefits.

A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra said, “We have legal difficulties. We cannot direct the legislature to legislate on a particular issue. We just asked them (Centre and state) to deliberate.”

The court was hearing a PIL by Ankur Sharma, who is an advocate of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court.

Appearing for the Centre, Attorney General K K Venugopal informed the court that it was still deliberating the issue. The court said it would take up the matter after eight weeks.

On August 8, the court had granted a final opportunity to the Centre and other stakeholders to take a decision in three months on issues raised in the petition. Prior to this, the top court had issued notice to the Centre, state government and National Commission for Minorities (NCM) on the plea filed by Sharma who alleged that benefits accruing to minorities were being taken away by the 68 per cent-strong Muslim community in Jammu and Kashmir.

The court had asked the Centre and the state government to “sit together” and find a solution to “contentious” issues, including whether Muslims in the state could be regarded as a minority to avail of benefits under that category.

Sharma’s PIL demanded creation of a state minorities commission for Jammu and Kashmir so that the religious and linguistic minorities could be identified and notified by the state government and their interests be safeguarded by enforcing their fundamental rights. He claimed that the “lawful share” of the “religious and linguistic ‘minorities’ in the state” were being “siphoned off illegally and arbitrarily owing to the non-identification of the said minorities and extension of minority benefits to the unqualified sections of the population”.

The petitioner alleged the provisions of the National Commission for Minorities Act were not applicable to Jammu and Kashmir due to a caveat by Article 370.

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