Cannot ask J&K to set up minorities commission: SC

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 11

The Supreme Court today 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 the Muslims who constitute more than 68% of the population.

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

“We can’t issue any direction on a subject like this…it’s up to them,” said CJI Misra. The apex court had on August 8 taken exception to Mehbooba 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 the Centre and the 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 the 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 the minorities were going to the majority community i.e. Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir. Sharma alleged that crores of rupees were being squandered as the state was spending money on unidentified minorities.

The Narendra Modi government had on May 1 told the apex 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 a minority commission for the state.

The committee consisting of the Union Minority Affairs Secretary, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Secretary and other officials was constituted pursuant to the court’s March 27 order. The panel is supposed to submit a joint proposal before the Supreme Court suggesting solutions to the problems faced by Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Christians due to their non-identification as minorities in the state.

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

While the Modi government dithered on the issue, the Mehbooba Mufti-led government had opposed the creation of a minority commission in the state, saying that it was not the only state where the minorities declared under the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) Act were in a majority and there was no such body.

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

In an affidavit filed in the SC 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 to safeguard the interests of the 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 a majority. The situation is similar in the states of Meghalaya, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Punjab and Lakshadweep.”

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