Centre changing goalposts on ‘minority’ tag leaves Supreme Court fuming

Supreme Court gives Centre three months to hold ‘wide consultations’ with States, stakeholders

The Centre’s shifting stands on who can grant minority status left the Supreme Court displeased on Tuesday even as the political push for giving Hindus the ‘minority’ tag in as many as 10 States where the religious community is numerically low turns increasingly strident.

On March 25, the Ministry of Minority Affairs, in an affidavit, told the court that both the Centre and States had “concurrent power” to notify minorities. It had even said that States could also recognise a community as a minority at the individual State level.

“States can also declare a religious or linguistic community as a minority community within the said State,” the Ministry had said.

Hardly two months later, a “superseding” affidavit filed by the same Ministry on May 9, reversed its own position.

This time, the Ministry claimed that the Centre alone was vested with the power to notify a minority community.

The three-page affidavit said Section 2(f) and Section 2(c) of the National Commission for Minorities Educational Institutions Act, 2004, and the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992, respectively, passed by the Parliament, empowered the Centre to notify a minority community.

“The power is vested with the Central government to notify minorities,” the Ministry submitted.