The Centre’s shifting stands on who can grant minority status left the Supreme Court displeased on Tuesday even as the political push for giving Hindus the ‘minority’ tag in as many as 10 States where the religious community is numerically low turns increasingly strident.
On March 25, the Ministry of Minority Affairs, in an affidavit, told the court that both the Centre and States had “concurrent power” to notify minorities. It had even said that States could also recognise a community as a minority at the individual State level.
“States can also declare a religious or linguistic community as a minority community within the said State,” the Ministry had said.
