Kerala HC slams State govt for 80% Muslim reservation in scholarship

On Friday (May 28), the Kerala High Court upheld that ‘subclassification’ of the Muslims inside the minority group and disproportionate awarding of scholarships to them shouldn’t be legally sustainable. The Court’s statement involves a serious setback to the Kerala authorities which sought to offer scholarships to Muslims and Latin Catholics/transformed Christians within the 80:20 ratio.
A petition was earlier filed by one Justine Pallivathukal earlier than the Kerala High Court, searching for quashing of the Kerala authorities’s order. The petition learn, “The State of Kerala under the guise of promoting the minority communities is showing undue favouritism to the Muslim community to the detriment of other minority communities. In the case of the Christian community, other than Latin Catholic and converted Christians, no benefit is given to the rest of the group resulting in total discrimination.”
The petitioner argued that the Kerala authorities’s order meted undue favouritism to the Muslim group on the expense of different non secular minorities. Furthermore, the petition searched for the redressal of the discriminatory order and requested that scholarships be distributed uniformly. Justine Pallivathukal, in an alternate prayer, additionally urged the Court that the scholarships be distributed in accordance to the inhabitants of the minority communities.
Observations made by the Kerala High Court
The matter got here up for listening to earlier than the Division Bench of Justice Shaji P Chaly and Chief Justice Manikumar. During the listening to, Justice Shaji P Chaly directed that the scholarships should be supplied on merit-cum-means foundation to all notified ‘minority communities’ in equal proportion. The Court dominated, “We hereby direct the State Government to pass requisite and appropriate Government Orders providing merit-cum-means scholarship to the members of the notified minority communities within the state equally, in accordance with the latest population census available with the State Minority Commission.”
The Kerala High Court identified that whereas there was nothing improper in offering assist to notified minorities, the State authorities has to deal with them equally. It emphasised that the State had no powers to deal with them unequally. “But here is a case where without taking into account the entitlement of the Christian Minority community within the State available from the population ratio, State is indulging in providing scholarship to the Muslim minority community at 80%, which according to us, is an unconstitutional act and unsupported by any law,” the Court added.
Further slamming the Kerala authorities, the High Court mentioned that the Executive Orders issued by the State authorities can not overrule Article 29 and provisions of the Minority Commission Acts of 1992 and 2014. The Court dominated, “Therefore, deducing the facts, circumstances and the laws, we are of the considered opinion that the action of the State Government in sub-classifying the minorities by providing merit-cum-means scholarship at 80% to the Muslim community and 20% to the Latin Catholic Christians and Converted Christians cannot be legally sustained.”
The Background of the Case
Reportedly, the Kerala authorities had determined to award 80% of the scholarships to Muslims and 20% to Latin Catholics on the idea of a proposal submitted by an 11-member Committee. It should be talked about that the Committee was requested to implement the suggestions of the contentious Sachar committee report in Kerala. The State authorities initially handed out 5000 scholarships to feminine Muslim college students solely for graduate and post-graduate research.
In February 2011, the Kerala authorities determined to increase it to Latin Catholics/Converted Christians. It should be talked about that the State authorities’s minority scholarship contradicted one other such scholarship introduced by the UPA-I authorities in 2006.
In its defence, the Kerala authorities had argued that Muslims had been extra impoverished within the State as in comparison with Christians. It mentioned that there have been solely 3% landless Christians as in comparison with 37.8% Muslims. The State authorities additionally justified the exclusion of Christians, Roman Catholics and different sects by claiming that they weren’t ‘backward communities.’