Can Sikhs be treated as minority in Punjab: Supreme Court to Modi government

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday asked the government to explain whether Sikhs could be treated as a minority in Punjab where they constituted 75% of the population, a complex question with the potential to become a political hot potato with state elections just a year away.

This will also have ramifications for other communities such as Muslims and Christians, which are minorities nationally but are dominant in some states. “Can Muslims be a minority in Kashmir (J&K)? Can Christians be a minority in Nagaland, Mizoram,” a five-judge bench led by Chief Justice TS Thakur asked. The remark came in a case related a demand by the Punjab government and the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) for minority status for SGPC-run educational institutions.

The Punjab government had in a notification on April 13, 2001, declared that Sikhs would be treated as a minority for admissions to educational institutions of the SGPC, which manages Sikh shrines. This would allow reservation of 50-80% of seats for the community.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court stayed the notification on December 7, 2007. Among other things, the high court noted that the Sikhs could not be treated as a minority in the state as the community was not in a position where it could be deprived of its rights by any other dominant group.

Besides, encouraging this would pose a threat to the country by promoting multi-nationalism, it had said. Both state government and the SGPC, and several of its educational institutions, challenged the HC decision. The top court had in February 2015 refused to stay the high court order. It is now grappling with the complex issues raised in the petition.

The top court appointed senior advocate TR Andhyarujina as an amicus curiae to help it in this case.