New Delhi: The Central Government has submitted before the Supreme Court that the State governments can announce any religious or linguistic community, including Hindus, as a minority within the said state.

The centre made this submission in response to a plea filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay that sought directions for framing of guidelines identifying minorities at the state level.

He said that there are at least states in the country where the Hindus are in minority, yet they are not getting the benefits of schemes meant for minorities.

Replying to this, the Ministry of Minority Affairs submitted that matters concerning whether followers of Hinduism, Judaism, Bahaism can establish and administer educational institutions of their choice in the said states.

Those related to their identification as a minority within the state may be considered at the state level.
Challenging the validity of section 2(f) of the National Commission for Minority Education Institution Act, 2004, Upadhyay had said that the law gives unbridled power to the Centre and termed it "manifestly arbitrary, irrational, and offending".

Section 2(f) of the NCMEI Act empowers the Centre to identify and notify minority communities in India.
In its response, the Centre said that the State governments have the authority to declare a religious or linguistic community as a minority community within the said state.

 "For instance, the Maharashtra government has notified 'Jews' as a minority community within the state. Moreover, the Karnataka government has notified Urdu, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Marathi, Tulu, Lamani, Hindi, Konkani and Gujarati languages as minority languages within the state of Karnataka," it said.

"Therefore in view of the states also notifying minority communities, the petitioners' allegation that the followers of Judaism, Bahaism, and Hinduism, who are real minorities in Ladakh, Mizoram, Lakshadweep, Kashmir, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Punjab, and Manipur cannot establish and administer educational institutions of their choice is not correct." The affidavit said that the Parliament has enacted the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992, under Article 246 of the Constitution read with Entry 20 in the Concurrent List in Schedule 7.

The ministry also denied that section 2(f) of the said act confers unbridled power to the Centre.

It further told the Supreme Court that minority welfare schemes are meant for underprivileged students and economically weaker sections of the minority community and are not for everyone belonging to the minority community.