A public interest litigation filed in the Supreme Court has claimed that the National Commission of Minorities under the Ministry of Minority Affairs and the state government of Jammu and Kashmir, for decades, have been “illegally and arbitrarily” giving benefits of schemes meant for minorities in the rest of the country, to the majority Muslim population of the state.
Last week, the Supreme Court, which in July 2016 issued notices to the Central government and the J&K government, imposed a fine of Rs 15,000 on both for not filing a reply on the matter. The SC will hear the matter again in four weeks’ time. The petitioner, Ankur Sharma, a Jammu based lawyer, had moved the Supreme Court seeking the suspension of all minority schemes in Jammu and Kashmir on the ground that the majority Muslim population in the state was “illegally” reaping the benefits of schemes given to the minorities in the rest of the country.
In his PIL, Sharma has given the specific instance of how, despite the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) Act, 1992—under which National Minorities are to be notified—not being applicable to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, the Ministry of Minority Affairs, in 2007-2008, awarded 717 out of 753 scholarships to the majority Muslim community in J&K. Of the rest 36 scholarships, Christians got 2, Buddhists 22 and Sikhs 12 scholarships. Since Hindus are not considered as minorities in J&K, they did not get any scholarships.
As per the 2011 census, Islam is practised by about 68.3% of J&K’s population. Among the minorities, 28.4% are Hindus, followed by Sikhs (1.9%), Buddhists (0.9%) and Christians (0.3%). In the Kashmir valley, around 96.4% are Muslims, followed by Hindus (2.45%), Sikhs (0.98%) and others (0.17%).
Sharma says that these scholarships are still being distributed by the National Commission for Minorities.
“The population of Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir, according to the 2011 Census is 68.31%. Communities (Hindu, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians) that are eligible to be notified as minorities were not awarded their due share of scholarship owing to their non-identification as minorities, thereby jeopardising their constitutionally guaranteed rights enshrined under Part III of the Constitution. This clearly reflects the unfairness and discrimination of the state towards the communities in the state of Jammu and Kashmir which are eligible to be notified as minorities,” Sharma alleged.
Sharma told The Sunday Guardian that no panel has been set up to identify religious and linguistic minorities in the country’s only Muslim-majority state despite repeated representations.
“Despite repeated attempts and demands, successive state governments have not legislated the State Minority Commission Act, which empowers the state Assembly to notify minorities by applying prescribed criteria. Consequently, the benefits exclusively meant for the minority communities are being given away to a certain community, which is in fact the majority community, in an illegal and arbitrary manner,” he said.
Sharma also pointed out that guidelines for the implementation of the Prime Minister’s new 15-point programme for the welfare of minorities lays down that “in states where one of the minority communities notified under section 2(c) of the NCM Act, 1992 is in fact a majority, the earmarking of physical/financial targets under different schemes will be only for the notified minorities”.