Paswan criticises Allahabad HC judgement on Muslims

New Delhi, Apr 5 (UNI) Union Minister and Lok Jan Shakti party leader Ram Vilas Paswan today criticised the Allahabad High Court judgement terming Muslims as a non-minority community in Uttar Pradesh and demanded that the government should appeal against the order.

Mr Paswan said the controversial judgement has been given by a single judge Bench and the government should appeal against it before a bigger Bench of the High Court.

''In UP Muslims constitue about 21 to 23 per cent of the population, hence they were in minority in the state,'' he said.

He wondered on what grounds the High Court has termed Muslims as a non-minority community in UP.

Mr Paswan said, ''under the Constitution minorities are defined both at the national and state level separately. At the national level Muslims, Sikhs and Christians are termned as minority while at the state level a particular community is termed as minority or non-minority depending on their population. For example in Kashmir Muslim forms a majority community in North East Christians are a majority and in Punjab Sikhs are in majority.'' ''However, if any particular community in a state is less than 50 per cent of the population of that state then it is termed as minority as is the case for Muslims in UP. So the government should definetly appeal against the judgement,'' Mr Paswan added.

UNI