Bhubaneswar/ New Delhi: The Centre has told the Supreme Court that states can grant minority status to Hindus if they are not in a majority and are unable to avail of several Central schemes meant for the minorities. The submission was made in response to a plea filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay that sought directions for framing of guidelines identifying minorities at the state level contending that Hindus are in a minority in 10 states and are not able to avail the benefits of schemes meant for minorities.
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 and those related to their identification as minority within the state may be considered at state level. The Ministry of Minority Affairs in its response said, “State governments can also declare a religious or linguistic community as a minority community within the said states. 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.