Aligarh Muslim University Minority Status: Live Updates From Supreme Court Hearing [Day 6]

Dwivedi refers to various members as part of the AMU Act including the nawabs, or even under British employment etc

Dwivedi mentions on how the special office of Lord rector was only in AMU and BHU at that time- no visitor in any other university has the power to make amends to the statute ; amendment in AMU could only happen at the will of the lord rector.

Dwivedi read from his submisisons

Dwivedi: iam not against muslims, all the Muslims in India had hardly anything to do before what happened in 1947 , so we are all bound by fraternity otherwise also so no ill feeling at all. .... Justice Wanchoo and all he learned judges in Basha had witnessed what was happening all through, the two world wars. Justice wanchoo became an IACS officer in 1926 so he is a witness of all that, so why isn't he assuming what is minority and all that etc 

Dwivedi refers to various judgements which hold that FRs cannot be applied retrospectively 

Dwivedi: lets take kerala for example , there is nobody in majority, lets assume that Hindus, Muslims, Christians each of them are 33% or 35% how do you apply mylords? decide who is minority. So please decide, these questions will come....electoral politics will play out in it own way but will you decide if you simply have a numerical test then how do you decide Kerala - nobody is above 50% nobody is in majority. So we need a definition, because high time its 2024 if we still don't decide the definition of minority which the framers did not decide. So we need a definition. The best test is the objective test....

Dwivedi : why was 30 needed, for the safeguard and protection, the next question from whom? from the ruling majority, the fear ....the whole argument for creating Pakistan was the fear of Hindu domination. We want a separate homeland so the fear of hindu domination was there and it lingers...gandhiji pleaded with Jinnah tell me the maximum safeguards we will give you . Jinnah said we do not want safeguards because safeguards give us a tag of minority....

Dwivedi : but makes no difference whether it existed or didn't exist. before the British came they were the rulers, it was a question of alliance and loyalty between two rulers of the past . How many years will you go back and say that 200 yrs back some school was set up so minority status. The rulers had established dominant rule for destroying this country and whatever construction they had set up was for their advantage, incidentally it flowed to the others 

CJI: at a constitutional level we assured equal citizenship to every citizen, in which case how can anyone claim they have a minority status?

Dwivedi: because of article 30 but for 30 nobody could

CJI: but that begs the question, what does 30 recognise in terms of a minority.

Dwivedi: 30 recognises only this that you are a group of persons who subscribe to a different religion, culture, script language-urdu therefore that needs protection

CJI: these are sociological features which existed prior to 1950

CJI : what change took place on 26 january 1950 that the Muslims which according to you didn't have minority status suddenly got minority after 1950 ? what is the big change that took place

Dwivedi: the big chance was that after whatever I had mentioned earlier the separate electorates, waited elections, two nation theory etc and from 1935-47 the entire AMU barring some exceptional individuals was pioneering the Pakistan movement.

CJI: what happened in 26 Jan 1950?

Dwivedi: by that time stood divided

CJI : but in relation to your three fold test what is the change which takes place in 26 January 1950

Dwivedi: those left behind, who had been beguiled in the theory of Pakistan, they were dependent upon the rule of majority under the constitution of India . Which is likely to be elements most often from the hindu community 

Khanna J : when we are referring to article 30, does that definition apply here?

Dwivedi: no, this definitions are applicable independently I had made a submission that the object of article 30 is safeguard , protection from that flows dominance, so this definition is apt...

Khanna J : also dominance can keep on varying from time to time, if we talk about political dominance it can vary from time to time

CJI: and dominance is also a function of socioeconomic advancement , what if there's a community which does not have the benefit of education as the Muslims were at that time, the community was not highly advance socially, economically etc

Dwivedi ; from the angle of western education everybody was a minority. if this test is applied...this all started in 1957 universities there were hardly 5 so we were all in the same position its not that the hindus had western education and the Muslims did not have 

Khanna J : the western philosophers that you are referring to are made in slightly different context . When we are referring to article 29 and 30 we are referring to certain things which are provided in the constitution itself. For example south Africa the majority were non dominant, if we go into all that there will be difficulty. So when we are dealing with that ...because in India we are giving protection to various groups also, socially marginalised communities etc . there are certain benefits also, positive affirmation is also there.

Dwivedi: its alright, it doesn't impact