Can’t ask J&K Assembly to enact law to set up minority panel: SC

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 11

The Supreme Court on Monday said it cannot direct the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly to enact a law to set up a minorities commission in the state where Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Christians are not identified as minorities despite being lesser in number than Muslims who constitute more than 68% of population.

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“How can we ask or direct the state legislature to legislate in a particular manner? The Centre says they will deliberate on it and get back to this court,” a bench headed Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra told advocate Ankur Sharma who has filed a PIL seeking a direction to the state to establish a state minorities commission.

“We cannot issue any direction on a subject like this…it’s up to them,” said CJI Misra. 

The top court had on August 8 took exception to Mahbooba Mufti government’s affidavit on the issue of setting up a minority commission in the state terming it “disastrous”.

It had given three months to Centre and Jammu and Kashmir government to jointly take a “considered view” on the contentious issue.

According to the 2011 Census, Hindus constitute 28.4 per cent of the total population in Jammu and Kashmir, followed by Sikhs (1.9 per cent), Buddhists (0.9 per cent); and Christians (0.3 per cent).

In Kashmir Valley, about 96.4 per cent are Muslims, followed by Hindus (2.45 per cent), Sikhs (0.98 per cent) and others (0.17 per cent).

Petitioner Sharma, a Jammu-based advocate, alleged that the benefits meant for minorities were going to the majority community i.e. Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir. Sharma alleged that crores of rupees were being squandered away as the state was spending money on unidentified minorities.

The Narendra Modi government had on May 1 told the top court that a high-level committee comprising officials of the Centre and the Jammu and Kashmir government had been constituted to look into the issue of setting up of a minority commission for the state.

The committee consisting of union minority affairs secretary, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Secretary and certain other officials was constituted pursuant to the court’s March 27 order. The panel is supposed to submit a joint proposal before the top court suggesting solutions to the problems faced by Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Christians owing to their non-identification as minorities in the state where Muslims constitute more than 68% of the population.

Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had told the court that consultations regarding setting up of the commission were at an advanced stage.

Even as the Narendra Modi government dithered on the issue, the Mehbooba Mufti-led PDP-BJP government of Jammu and Kashmir had opposed creation of a minority commission in the state, saying it was not the only state where minorities declared under the National Commission for Minorities Act were in majority and there was no such body.

Terming it a “very very important issue”, the top court had asked them to deal with it jointly. It had asked both the governments also to decide if Muslims can be treated as minority in the state where they outnumber other religious groups. The bench wanted both the governments to resolve the issue and submit a report to it.

In an affidavit filed in the top court in February, the Jammu and Kashmir government had opposed a petition filed by advocate Ankur Sharma in 2016 seeking a direction to the state to set up a minority commission in the state to safeguard the interests of religious and linguistic minorities.

The state government’s affidavit stated: “There are other states/Union Territories in the country where such population (declared minorities under the NCM Act) is in majority. The situation is similar in the states of Meghalaya, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Punjab and Lakshadweep.”

Earlier, it had said that the central Act was not applicable to the state and as such it did not have to set up a state-level minorities’ commission.