a. answer to public interest litigation Filed by Advocate Ashwini Upadhyay:The central government, in an affidavit, said that since the subject of identification of minority communities is in the Concurrent List of the Constitution, both the Center and the states have the power to make laws for granting minority status to certain religious or linguistic communities. Minorities in the country or a particular state.
Upadhyay had said that though Hindus, Jews and followers of Bahaism are minorities in the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Mizoram, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Lakshadweep. Manipur And PunjabMajority communities in these states are treated as ‘minorities’ because of their national population percentage and enjoy the benefits that de facto minorities in them deserve.
The Center, in the exercise of its constitutional powers, has so far created Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, Parsi and Jain minorities in the country. However, it said that states also have the power to declare a community as a linguistic or religious minority.
The Center said it is for the concerned state legislature to consider whether these religious groups and communities can be declared as minorities to allow them to establish and operate educational institutions of their choice in those states. State governments may also declare a religious or linguistic community as a ‘minority’ community within the said state.
“For example, the government of Maharashtra has notified ‘Jews’ as a minority community within the State. The Government of Karnataka has released the Urdu, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Marathi, Tulu, Lamani (Lambadi), Hindi, Konkani and Gujarati languages as minority languages within the state,” the Center said.
It states that states may also certify institutions established by smaller linguistic or religious communities as ‘minority institutions’ within their territorial jurisdiction. “The Government of Karnataka declared Telugu private unaided schools as ‘minority’ schools on February 13, 2020,” it said.
Pointing out that the issue of identification of a religious and linguistic minority cannot be put to a straight line, the Center said, “The religious and linguistic minorities are spread throughout the country and belong to any one State/Union Territory of India. or are not prohibited. India is a country with very unique characteristics. A religious group that is in majority in one state may be a minority in another state.”