New Delhi: Supreme Court advocate and BJP member Ashwini Upadhyay has filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking a declaration of followers of Hinduism, Judaism and Bahaism as minorities in certain states.
The states include Ladakh, Mizoram, Lakshadweep, Kashmir, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Punjab and Manipur. Citing data on the population of these 3 religions in the mentioned states, Upadhyay contended that they are real minorities but can not establish and administer educational institutions of their choice because of non-identification as a minority at the state level.
Challenging the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions Act (NCMEI Act),2004, he says that five communities namely Muslim, Christians, Sikhs Buddhists and Parsee were declared minority at the national level against the TMA Pai ruling.
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The ruling stated that: " Linguistic and religious minorities are covered by the expression minority under Article 30 of the constitution. Since the reorganization of the states has been on linguistic lines, therefore, the purpose of determining the minority, the unit will be state and not while India. Thus religious and linguistic minorities who have been put on par in Article 30, have to be considered state wise."
Ashwini Upadhyay in his plea sought directions to declare section 2(f) of the NCMEI Act 2004 as void and to lay guidelines for identification of minority at the state level in order to ensure that only those religious and linguistic groups which are "socially, economically, politically non-dominant and numerically inferior" get the minority status.
