JUSTINE PALLIVATHUKKAL Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a Public Interest Litigation filed by an Advocate who is also claiming to be a public spirited person acting for the common cause of the society, particularly related to minorities in the State of Kerala. Petitioner is a member of Roman Catholic community, which is one of the minority communities. The grievance highlighted by the petitioner is that while most of the socio, economic and educational empowerment schemes and programmes of the Central Government are meant for the socio economically poor and downtrodden sections of the society including the six centrally notified minorities, while implementing various schemes in the State of Kerala there is marked discrimination favouring one minority against other minority communities without any rationale.

(2.) According to the petitioner, in order to translate the intention of the framers of the constitution and to safeguard the minority communities and to protect them from discrimination and deprivation of their rights, the Union Government had set up the National Commission for Minorities under the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992, hereinafter called, 'Act, 1992'. It is the case of the petitioner that, as per section 20 of the said Act, minority community for the purpose of the Act means, communities notified as such by the Central Government. Therefore, according to the petitioner, six religious communities viz., Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Zoroastrians (Parsis) and Jains have been notified in the gazette of India as minority communities by the Union Government.

(3.) It is further submitted that the functions of the National Commission in contemplation of section 9 of Act, 1992 make it clear that it should govern the overall development of the minority communities without any undue favour to any particular community. Thereafter, on 9.3.2005, a notification was issued by the Central Government for the constitution of a High Level Committee to prepare a report on the social, economic and educational status of the Muslim community of India known as "the Prime Minister's High Level Committee", chaired by Justice Rajindar Sachar.