The Central Government has the power to decide what community can be considered a minority. This provision is extremely problematic as it can be misused. Therefore, challenging the Constitutional validity of the said provision a petition was filed before the Supreme Court.
Matter of Contention
A transfer petition was filed before the Supreme Court, that urged it to hear all the pending petitions challenging the validity of Section 2(c) of the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992. Section 2(c) of the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992 deals with the definition of the term ‘minority.’ According to the provisions of the Act, the Central Government has the provisions to notify any community as a minority community. The arbitrariness of the said provision was questioned before the Supreme Court in the petition. Similar petitions are pending before 6 High Courts.
Arguments
The petition contended that while the central government declared Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Zoroastrians as minority communities. However, the Central did not recognise the followers of Bahaism as a minority community despite comprising a mere 0.1% of the population.
This was described as
“arbitrary, unjustified and abdication of the statutory powers of the Central government.”
The petition further argued that
“the minority rights of Hindus are being siphoned off illegally and arbitrarily to the majority population because neither Centre nor respective States have notified them as ‘minority’ under S.2(c) of the NCM Act. Hence, Hindus are being deprived of their basic rights and protections guaranteed under Articles 29-30.”
Precedents
The arguments were largely derived from judicial precedents like the TMA Pai Case [2002 (8) SCC 481]. The case clearly laid down what a minority community is in accordance with Article 30 of the Constitution of India.
“Linguistic and religious minorities are covered by expression minority under Article 30 of the Constitution. Since the reorganization of the States has been on linguistic lines, therefore, for the purpose of determining the minority, the unit will be State and not whole India. Thus, religious and linguistic minorities, who have been put on a par in Article 30, have to be considered state wise. Therefore, for the purpose of notifying community as ‘minority’, the Centre is empowered to consider the claim of a particular community for being notified as such under Section 2(c) and cannot shirk its statutory responsibility.”
Taking into consideration the said case and judgement it is clear that the State was the unit for determining what a linguistic and religious minority is.
Decision
The Supreme Court on analysing the arguments put forth by both the petitioner and the defendants called for an adjournment. The 3-judge bench comprising of Chief Justice S.A. Bobde, Justices A.S. Bopanna and V. Ramasubramanian pointed out in the petition filed before the Supreme Court, certain members of the High Court petitions were not made parties. The Court directed the counsels to take necessary action on it.
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