NEW DELHI: It may sound ridiculous at first blush, but the Supreme Court on Monday agreed to examine whether Sikhs were a "minority group in homeland Punjab" — saying it had far reaching importance and consequences.A constitution bench of Chief Justice TS Thakur and justices FMI Kalifulla, AK Sikri, S A Bobde and R Banumathi initially countered the plea by senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi for treating Sikhs as a minority in Punjab by asking, "Can Muslims be treated as minority in Jammu and Kashmir?"For that matter, can Christians, who are the majority in the states of Nagaland and Meghalaya, be also treated as a minority community in these two northeastern states? Sikhs may be a minority in other states but can they be treated as a minority group in Punjab?"But Dwivedi pointed out that another constitution bench judgment had erroneously fixed twin criteria — whether the group was numerically minority and whether they were dominated by other groups — for declaring a community as minority while taking the state as the geographical entity for such determination.He said numerical strength of a community within a state should be the criteria and not whether they were dominated by other communities. "A minority community may be affluent and not dominated in a state. This does not mean they can be denied the right to protect and further their cultural and educational rights as a minority group guaranteed under the Constitution," he said.Dwivedi said Sikhs were those who owed allegiance to Guru Granth Sahib and were enlisted as voters with Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committe . "The sub-sects and followers of Dera Sacha Sauda , Radha Soami and similarly placed persons are not considered Sikhs even though they were born to Sikh parents," he said.When the bench was deliberating whom to appoint as amicus curiae for assistance in adjudication of this tricky and complex constitutional issue, senior advocate KK Venugopal said it surely presented an issue that had far reaching consequences for many states."In Kerala, Christians are in minority but own majority of the educational institutions. If Christian-owned educational institutions turn into minority educational institutions, then it will have a telling effect," he said and agreed with the bench that former solicitor general T R Andhyarujina would be best suited to discharge duties as amicus curiae in this issue.The bench issued notice to the ministry of minority affairs and sought its response within four weeks. It also requested attorney general Mukul Rohatgi and senior advocate Andhyarujina to assist the court in deciding this question.A three-judge bench of the SC on August 8, 2005 had said in Bal Patil case, "It was not in contemplation of the framers of the Constitution to add to the list of religious minorities. The Constitution, through all its organs, is committed to protect religious, cultural and educational rights of all."Articles 25 to 30 guarantee cultural and religious freedoms to both majority and minority groups. Ideal of a democratic society, which has adopted right of equality as its fundamental creed, should be elimination of majority and minority and so called forward and backward classes."Constitution has accepted one common citizenship for every Indian regardless of his religion, language, culture or faith. The only qualification for citizenship is a person's birth in India. We have to develop such enlightened citizenship where each citizen of whatever religion or language is more concerned about his duties and responsibilities to protect rights of the other group than asserting his own rights."The constitutional goal is to develop citizenship in which everyone enjoys full fundamental freedoms of religion, faith and worship and no one is apprehensive of encroachment of his rights by others in minority or majority. If each minority group feels afraid of the other group, an atmosphere of mutual fear and distrust would be created posing serious threat to the integrity of our nation."That would sow seeds of multi-nationalism in India. It is, therefore, necessary that Minority Commission should act in a manner so as to prevent generating feelings of multi-nationalism in various sections of people of Bharat."The commission, instead of encouraging claims from different communities for being added to the list of notified minorities under the Act, should suggest ways and means to help create social conditions where the list of notified minorities was gradually reduced and done away with altogether, the SC had said in 2005.