DATE OF JUDGEMENT :
28th May 2021
JUDGES:
The Honourable Chief Justice Mr. S.Manikumar, Justice Shaji P. Chaly
PARTIES :
(Appellant)
Justine Pallivathukal
(Respondents)
State of Kerala (Represented by the Minority Welfare Department)
Kerala State Commission for Minorities
Union of India (Represented by Ministry of Minority Affairs)
SUBJECT
This judgment is about a PIL that had been filed before the High Court of Kerala stating that the new rue which has been introduced to provide about 80% scholarship to the Muslim minority and 20% scholarships to the remaining is unconstitutional.
OVERVIEW
This case is about a PIL that was filed against the government order which offered about 80% scholarships to the Muslim minority communities whereas the remaining 20% to the Latin Catholic and Converted Christians within Kerala.
It was held that this provision is arbitrary and unconstitutional.
It was said to be violative of Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution of our nation.
The petitioner contended that there cannot be favoritism for a specific minority community, and hence asked for this order to be quashed.
The court held that the commission cannot segregate the backwardness of the different minority communities.
This order was said to be violative of the fundamental rights and hence declared unconstitutional.
The court asked the state government to provide scholarships based on merit to the students belonging to the minority communities, based on their population.
IMPORTANT PROVISIONS
Section 9 of the National Commission for Minorities Act - this section enlists all the actions which can be taken by the commission in various circumstances and for various purposes. It also states that they can offer recommendations that can be presented before the Parliament. It also mentions the various actions that this commission is entitled to take.
Section 20 of the National Commission for Minorities Act - this section speaks about the directions issued by the central government. It states that while discharging their functions under this act, this commission will have to follow directions when it comes to the questions raised on the policy, as they are given to them by the central government. In cases of a dispute, the decision of the central government will be considered as final.
Article 14 of the Constitution - this article states that no individual can be denied equality or equal protection before the law. It also mentions that no individual can be discriminated against their gender, caste, religion, etc.
Article 15 of the Constitution - this article states that under no circumstances can the state discriminate against an individual based on their caste, religion, place of birth, etc.
Article 29 of the Constitution - this article talks about the protection of the interest of minorities. It also speaks about the fact that no student, irrespective of the religion they belong to can be denied admission into an educational institution that is maintained by the state or receives aid out of the funds which are provided by the state.
ISSUES
Whether the rule guaranteeing 80% scholarships to the Muslim minorities and the remaining 20% to the Latin Catholic or Converted Christians is constitutionally valid or not?
ANALYSIS OF THE JUDGEMENT
This case revolves around a PIL that was filed by an advocate belonging to the Roman Catholic community, one of the minority communities in the state of Kerala who claims to be someone acting for the common cause of the society. In his petition, he mentioned that most of the social-economic and educational empowerment schemes and programs introduced by the central government, which were meant to help the socio-economically poor and the weaker sections of the society which includes the six minority communities that have been notified centrally. He mentioned that while implementing these schemes there has been discrimination that favors one minority community against the others without any rationale.
He stated that the National Commission for Minorities under the National Commission for Minorities Act had been set up by the union government to follow the intention of the framers of the constitution along with safeguarding the minority communities and protecting them from discrimination and deprivation of their rights. He also stated that it is Section 9 of this act which states that the main focus should be on the overall development of the minority communities without favouring any particular community.
1. It was after this that a high-level committee chaired by justice Rajinder Sachar add known as the Prime Minister’s High-level Committee was introduced and asked to prepare a report on the social as well as the economic and educational status of the Muslim community of India. As per their report, they suggested a few recommendations to the Prime Minister which included: the setting up of an equal opportunity Commission which will look into the grievances of minorities, creating a nomination procedure that will encourage the participation of minority groups in public bodies, establishing a procedure which will not reserve constituencies with high minority population for the scheduled castes, they also suggested that there should be an increase in the employment share of Muslim community and particularly in those areas where there is a great deal of public dealing and lastly they suggested that degrees from madrassas should be recognized for eligibility in fields like defense, civil and banking examinations.
2. It was in the year 2006 that the 15 point program for the welfare of minorities was introduced by the union government and it had announced scholarship schemes for students belonging to the minority communities. It focused on providing scholarships to students who were from minority communities to promote pre-metric and post-metric financial assistance. The petitioner mentioned that it was not mentioned that these scholarships will be provided to only a particular minority community in preference to the other minority communities. The petitioner stated that the substance of the contention is that the scheme calls for a minority status as a whole and not individual religions which form a part of the minority community.
3. After this, another committee was set up by the state government to implement the recommendations which had been submitted in such are committee report. This committee was headed by Paul Ali Mohammed Kutty who was the head minister for local self-government. The state government had established a minority cell to implement the report that was submitted by them. As per their report 5000 scholarships had been set apart for Muslim women for their degree and post-graduate professional courses per year along with that 14 posts of clerk had been created in 14 districts. Also, 10 Crore Rupees were set apart for the implementation of these scholarships and they also extended the benefits to the Latin Catholics and other converted Christians.
4. The petitioner contended that the fixation ratio for this scholarship distribution was arbitrary and unjust and illegal as it violated articles 14 and 15 of the constitution of India. The petitioner also stated that the total population of minority communities in the state of Kerala is about 45.27% and out of this there are about 58.67% Muslims and 40.6 percent Christians along with 0.73% people belonging to the other minority communities.
5. However, the counter-effort of it which was filed by the state government stated that the Muslim community is far behind the Christian community in terms of college enrollment, unemployment percentage, and also land ownership. They also stated that there exists a very wide gap between the Muslim and Christian communities in terms of poverty. They mentioned that the Muslims in Kerala are very far behind other communities in the social, economic as well as educational fields. They stated that the Sachar committee report had laid down that the Muslim community is lagging in terms of education and it is very necessary to uplift and improve their educational conditions and this is why the government took the action of granting a separate set of scholarship schemes for the development of backward Muslim community. They mentioned that if there will not be any opportunity for education and training it will result in no chances for employment. They also mentioned that they are focusing to include any groups which are either unprivileged or and represented. The state government also mentioned that government at both central and state levels have their policies to implement programs and projects using respective funds and this scholarship scheme is under the central government and the state government is only the nodal agency for it. They mentioned a list of schemes and programs along with scholarship schemes that only focus on the forward communities and also provides them with financial aid to undertake coachings for competitive examinations. They mentioned that the state government is free to implement such schemes or other forms of educational support as per the needs and this ratio is not arbitrary or unjust and does not stand as violative of Articles 14 and 15 as it focuses on access ability to education for the weakest sections of the community.
6. The court stated that the rights which are available to the minority communities come from Article 29 of the constitution which also deals with the protection of the interest of minorities. They stated that when it is being granted by the state to educational institutions, in that case, they cannot discriminate against any institution whether it is under the management of a minority or based on the religion or language of the institution. It was further mentioned start the primary objective of the Commission was to focus on the social and economic development of the minorities and not a particular minority which is why they are not entitled to segregate the backwardness amongst different minority communities to protect the interests of any one particular minority community. The court also mentioned that articles 14 and 15 of the constitution are being clearly violated by the state government in the matter of these scholarships and the motive of the act is to treat all the minority communities as a whole and if at all it is fair that there is a need for the development of a weaker section within the minority community then the Commission will have to take into account the requirements of the weaker sections in each community and divide the merit coming scholarship equally between the members of the minority communities. The court held the example of the case of ‘Chinnaiah V. State of A.P' Which spoke about the sub classification among the schedule cost and schedule tribes and it was held that except for a limited power of making either inclusion or exclusion in the list by an act of the parliament there is no other provision which will allow the subdivision or sub-classification of the castes which are found in the presidential list of the scheduled caste and stated that the principles contained in this judgment will apply to the facts of this case and the circumstances as well. In their final judgment, the court stated that the action of the state government in providing about 80% scholarship to the Muslim community cannot be legally sustained and thus this order by the state government should be quashed and they also directed the Kerela state government to pass an appropriate government order which provides for the basis of merit -cum- means scholarship to the members of the notified minority communities within the state in an equal manner and according to the favoring sub-classification to the latest population census of the minority communities
CONCLUSION
This is a very recent and a very critical judgment that speaks about equality in the minority groups within the state of karela. A part of our constitution lays a lot of emphasis on the fact that equality is something that needs to be instilled in every section and every field of our society including the minorities who are granted the privilege of reservation in our country. However, when we talk about the case at hand we need to understand that this is not just about everybody has an equal opportunity because even after that being the case there is no denying the fact that the Muslim community within the state of Kerala is lagging to a very great extent when we compare it to the other minority communities in the same region. It is also important to understand that to figure this problem or to solve this problem we need to find the root cause behind what is not letting them have what the other communities do and then work on it.
This judgment states that there cannot be segregation when we talk about the backwardness of the communities but we are not looking at the fact that there are policies that are focusing on the communities which are much more forward if not backward. we need to understand that to ensure equal opportunity to the Muslim minority community we need to provide them with more opportunities for education and employment and then only we can increase their representation.
The judgment given by this court cannot be considered to be the best possible one because even if we grant equal scholarship schemes to every minority community concerning their population we cannot deny the fact that this Muslim minority community will still lag and we are not doing anything specific to improve their condition, which was the reason behind introducing this scheme. If this order is being quashed, then it is very important that first we try and understand the root cause because of which there has not been any improvement so far and secondly work on those causes and then focus on uplifting the Muslim minority community along with other minority communities. The essence of the act is to focus on the overall development of all the minority communities but there has been some lack of implementation because of which one community is still lagging.
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