New Delhi: A hearing was held in the Supreme Court on Friday on a petition filed demanding minority status for people belonging to any religion as per the population in the state. During this time, the court has expressed displeasure over the states which have not yet provided the data to the Centre. The court has given 6 weeks time to the states to provide the data. The court said that if the states did not do so, they would have to pay a fine of Rs 10,000. Now the next hearing in this case will be held in April.
In fact, BJP leader and lawyer Ashwini Upadhyay has filed a petition demanding minority status according to population. He has said in his petition that Hindus are a minority in terms of population in 9 states. But due to lack of official status, they do not have the right to open and run educational institutions. Nor is any kind of government assistance available. The court had asked the Center to collect necessary data from the states and file a reply.
The Center told the court that it has so far received replies from 24 states and 6 union territories, while Arunachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Lakshadweep, Rajasthan and Telangana have not yet responded. The Supreme Court has asked these states to file the status report within 2 weeks.
There are a total of 8 states in India where the Hindu population is less than 50 percent. That means, in a way, Hindus are in the minority category in those states. Due to this, a petition was filed in the Supreme Court in the year 2017. These eight states included states like Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Lakshadweep, Mizoram, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur.