Click to play videoNew Delhi: The Allahabad High Court on Friday stayed the order of a single-judge Bench of the court, taking away the minority status of the Muslim community in UP.
The order came on a review petition filed by the UP Government on Friday morning, challenging the verdict delivered by Justice S N Srivastava on Thursday.
The judge had ruled that Muslims will not be treated as a religious minority in the state any more based on the data of the Census reports of 1951 and 2001.
Advocate General S M A Kazmi had filed the review petition in the court on behalf of the state government, which was accepted by the court.
Speaking on Friday’s judgment, the Advocate General said, “We had gone into challenging the ruling as it was inconsistent with law. The basic question was whether is question can be discussed at all. There was no occasion to pass this order. Second is merit of the judgement, it will come up for discussion next week and we will get to know if the court was capable to pass such an order.”
Member of All India Muslim Personal Law Board Kamal Farooqi said, “There was no need for the honourable judge to pass such a judgement. What was the hurry? It could have been used by communal forces ahead of the elections in the state. Why could the judges not be more understanding towards the Muslims, who have been suffering as a minority community for long.”
“There is no other alternative for the state and central government but to respond to the Allahabad Court verdict. There are several citations that state that the issue of deciding whether a community is a minority or not is to be decided by the state,” he added.
Earlier in the day the ruling Samajwadi Party swung into action. The Mulayam Singh-led government on Friday moved post-haste to file a review petition in Allahabad High Court against its ruling.
Advocate General S M A Kazmi filed the review petition in the Court on behalf of the party, which was accepted by the court.
The move comes after Justice S N Srivastava ruled - after considering various criteria including the population of Muslims as enumerated in the census reports of 1951 and 2001 – that Muslims will not be considered as minority in the state.
The court said the UP government should treat members of the Muslim community as equal to those belonging to the non-minority communities without discrimination in accordance with law.
Terming the ruling as "unfortunate", Yadav on Thursday said that his government would file an appeal against the High Court order.
"This judgement is a very unfortunate one. We will definitely appeal and get the order revised," he was quoted as saying.
In fact, Muslims are considered a major vote base for the Samajwadi Party, which is fighting a tough battle in these elections to retain power in the state.
The judgement was given on a writ petition filed by a Madarsa of Ghazipur district, challenging out of turn grant-in-aid to certain other minority institutions.
The SP, in fact, sent an assurance in as many words, saying the party would press for a law in Parliament to ensure that they be treated as religious minority in the state, if necessary.
Thursday’s judgement came just ahead of the crucial Assembly polls in the state. The bench comprising SN Srivastava, earlier directed the state of Uttar Pradesh "to treat any member of the Muslim community as equal to other non-minority religious community without discrimination in any respect in accordance with the law."
The judge gave the ruling after considering various criteria, including the population of Muslims as enumerated in the census reports of 1951 and 2001. According to the 2001 Census, Muslims are 18.5 per cent of UP's total population.
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