Supreme Court Admits Plea Seeking To Declare National Minority Commission Act And National Minority Commission As Unconstitutional

A Bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Abhay Shreeniwas Oka told the Attorney General.

"AG, we have admitted the matter. This can't be decided at pre-admission stage. Let pleadings, documents, everything be completed. Then we will seek hearing of the matter."

When the petitioner requested to list the matter on a non-miscellaneous day, the Bench said, "I don't understand what's a non-miscellaneous day? Non miscellaneous matters will finish in half an hour. These are not matters which will finish in half hour.... It raises a point; therefore, we will admit it."

The petition has been filed by an organisation named Viniyog Parivar Trust. The bench has tagged the petition with other pending matters which seek the same relief.

It is the petitioner's case that the State is not under any obligation to promote any language, script or culture of minority communities, or to enable them to establish and manage their educational institutions. "Thus, the proactive actions of the state and enacting the national minorities Commission Act establishing the National Minorities Commission on doling out huge sums to minorities, mainly Muslims has no constitutional mandate and may be termed as unconstitutional."

The petition further points out that utilizing the power granted under Section (2) C of the National Commission of Minorities Cct 1992, the central government issued a notification dated January 18, 2005, notifying five communities as minorities, namely Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Zoroastrians. Subsequently the Jain community was also declared as a minority. "It is clear that though there is no criteria prescribed anywhere for declaring any section of the society as minority, the aforesaid minorities are declared as such based only on one factor which is religion."

The plea goes on to state that this is arbitrary and without our application of mind, especially when no criteria or guidelines are being laid down for the declaration of any community as a minority community.

The petition seeks a direction to the Centre to enact a law for all communities (except for Muslims) on the same lines as for Hindus to provide for monogamy and to restrict the number of children per family in tune with the National Population Policy.

Case Title: Viniyog Parivar Trust vs UOI | WP (C) No. 894/2021