NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a PIL seeking minority status for Hindus in several states where Muslims or Christians are in the majority and said religious minority status could be given only on the basis of pan-India population.

A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) S A Bobde and Justices B R Gavai and Surya Kant disagreed with petitioner Ashwini Upadhyay that the current scheme of using the country as a whole as the unit for determining religious minority should be replaced by one where population of different communities in each state is used as the yardstick.

Appearing for Upadhyay, Mohan Parasaran said that in two cases concerning the establishment of educational institutions — T M A Pai and P A Inamdar — constitution benches of the Supreme Court had used “state” for determining linguistic minority.

However, the CJI-led bench said, “States were formed on linguistic basis. That is not the case with religion. It has to be pan-India. What is the problem if a community is majority in Jammu & Kashmir but minority in all other states. In Lakshadweep , Hindus may be 2% but they follow Hinduism which is majority in India.”

Parasaran said Section 2(c) of National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992, “arbitrarily” notified Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists and Parsis as minority communities on October 23, 1993, based on their national population. He said some of these communities, despite being in majority in some states, were cornering government sponsored benefits meant for minority communities of those states.

In his petition, Upadhyay had cited the example of J&K and said, “In Jammu & Kashmir, the government allotted 717 out of a total 753 scholarships to Muslim students based on the 1993 notification and none to Hindu students.”

Attorney general K K Venugopal, whose assistance had been sought by the bench, said Hindu population was in minority in seven states and Union Territories.

As per the Census, Hindus were in minority in Punjab (Sikh majority), Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland (all with Christian majority), J&K and Lakshadweep (Muslim majority).

However, the majority community in these states and Union Territories were enjoying ‘minority’ status and communities which were the real minorities were not getting legitimate share because of non-identification of minorities, Upadhyay said. When Parasaran pressed for framing of new criteria for determination and notification of minority community, the bench said, “Where is the problem? We cannot declare anyone as minority. It is always done by the government.”

