PIL on criteria for determination of Minority status: SC seeks views of Attorney General

The Supreme Court today sought the views of Attorney General KK Venugopal in a petition praying that the criteria for deciding Minority status of communities be revisited..The PIL filed by Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay prays that minorities be identified based on their status in a State..It seeks a direction to be issued to the Central government to define the term “Minority” and lay down guidelines for identification, to ensure that only those religious and linguistic groups that are socially economically and politically non-dominant and numerically inferior may enjoy rights and protections guaranteed under Articles 29-30..To this end, the petitioner has prayed for the striking down of Section 2(c) of the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992..He has also prayed for the quashing of a notification issued by the Central government in 1993 by which Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Zorastrians were notified as minorities..When the matter came up today before a Bench of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose, the Court asked the petitioner to serve a copy of the petition on the Attorney General..[Read Order]