india

Updated: Jul 20, 2019 02:19 IST

The Supreme Court on Friday sought attorney general KK Venugopal’s assistance in dealing with a plea that wants minority communities to be defined on the basis of state-wise population instead of national data.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose took note of the public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay and asked him to send a copy to the top law officer’s office. The PIL challenges the validity of the Centre’s 26-year-old notification declaring five communities — Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis — as minorities.

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, who is Upadhyay’s lawyer, submitted before the court that the law which allows declaration of minority community on the basis of national data was illegal. The court has listed the matter for hearing after four weeks.

Upadhyay’s plea has sought to declare as unconstitutional the section of the National Commission for Minority Act, 1992, under which the notification was issued on October 23, 1993. It has asked for guidelines to be laid down to define the word “minority” based on state-wise population of a community.

In the petition, Upadhyay said Hindus are a majority community as per national data but a minority community in some North-eastern states and in Jammu and Kashmir. However, the Hindu community is deprived of benefits available to the minority community in these states.