Left seeks Centre's intervention on HC Judgement

New Delhi, Apr 6 (UNI ) Perturbed by the Allahabad High Court judgement derecognising Muslims as a minority in Uttar Pradesh, the Left parties today sought the Centre's immediate invervention to defend the constitutional rights of the religious minorities, thereby by protecting the national unity as a whole.

Stating that the judgement was difficult to ''digest'', the leaders of the CPI, CPI(M) and Forward Bloc told UNI that the basic genesis of the Constitution could not be tampered with by any entity - legislature or judiciary.

In a landmark judgement, the Allahabad High Court has held that the Muslims cannot be treated as a religious minority anymore in Uttar Pradesh. Justice S N Srivastva gave the ruling after considering various criteria, including the population of Muslims as enumerated in the consensus reports of 1951 and 2001.

The judgement came just two days ahead of the first phase of Assembly polls in UP, sending shock waves amongst most of political parties and representatives of the Muslim community.

The judgement has, however, been welcomed by the RSS and the BJP.

CPI leaders A B Bardhan and Shamim Faizi said the verdict would have far-reaching consequences as far as social, educational and economic uplift of the Muslims is concerned.

''Obviously the judgement goes against the very structure of our Constitution and it needs to be reviewed by the Supreme Court. It will not be appropriate if the apex court takes a suo-moto notice of the highly provocative judgement,'' said the CPI leaders.

Mr Bardhan stressed that the SC should not wait for any appeal to amend the judgement.

''The verdict has been announced at a time when various state governments and the Union are stipulating affirmative actions in the wake of the Sachchar Committee report, that has prescribed the economic and educational backwardness of the Muslim Community, as worse than that of already underprivileged groups,'' said Mr Bardhan, the veteran Communist leader and freedom fighter.

CPI National Secretary Shamim Faizi observed that the Muslims constitute the country's 13.4 per cent population and are obviously in minority.'' Except for Jammu and Kashmir, the Muslims are in minority in all other states. Their ratio of population is higher 20 per cent only in states of Asom, West Bengal and Kerala.

Editor of CPI mouthpiece 'New Age' in UP, Mr Faizi, said the Muslims constitute just 16 per cent of the population and that too are concentrated in the Western districts. ''A population less than 20 per cent of the total strength of the state should be recognised as a religious minority.'' According to CPI(M) senior leader Salim Mohammad, ''Normally we don't comment on courts' judgements. But this particular judgement is very difficult to digest as the rights of the minorities have been debated at length in the Constitution Assembly and its Sub Committee of which leaders like Shyama Prasad Mukherjee have been members. The judgement, however, could attract big headlines or breaking news but the judiciary could not be allowed to contribute to the breaking up of our national unity.'' ''I think the judgement will stand the scrutiny of the larger Bench,'' he added.

Terming the judgement ''disappointing,'' Forward Bloc National Secretary G Devrajan said it would have big social impact not only in the Hindi heartland but in the country as a whole.

''It is clear that the Muslims are in a minority in UP. Where is the need for any other classification? We have to consider religion as the determining factor of any minority. Who does not know that the Hindus are the majority,'' he said.

On the broader implications of the judgement, the Left leaders said it amounted to the denial of rights to the Muslims provided in various clauses of the constitution- right from Artcile 14 to 30.

They said under the constitution, the minorities have the right to establish and manage their own educational institutions.

They have various other privileges in matters of professing and propagating their religion, establishing welfare institutions to be run by them, control properties and demand appropriate share in the government schemes.

UNI