Octogenarian wants peace, asks court to define religion: Not our area of expertise says SC

New Delhi, Oct 27: An Octogenarian has approached the Supreme Court asking it to declare peace in the country.

In his petition, he said that the SC should define religion. If this was done, it would spell an end to communal riots. He also sought a directive from the Supreme Court that it should tell all that God resides in all. I want peace, he also said.

Chief Justice of India, S A Bobde however said that this was not the Supreme Court's area of expertise.

Earlier this week, a plea was filed in the Supreme Court, seeking a transfer of all pending petitions before various high courts challenging the validity of the Centre's 26-year-old notification declaring five communities -- Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsees -- as minorities.

The plea filed by BJP leader and advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay has urged for a transfer of the cases pending in the Delhi High Court, Meghalaya High Court and Gauhati High Court, which have challenged the constitutional validity of section 2(c) of the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992, under which the notification was issued on October 23, 1993.

The petition, filed through advocate Ashwani Kumar Dubey, said in order to avoid multiplicity of litigations and conflicting views, the plea has been moved before the apex court.

"Denial of minority rights to real minorities and arbitrary and irrational disbursement of minority benefits to majority infringes upon the fundamental right to the prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth," the plea said.

In his petition, the petitioner said Hindus, who are a majority community according to national data, are a minority in several north-eastern states and in Jammu and Kashmir.

However, the Hindu community is deprived of the benefits that are available to the minority communities in these states, the plea said, adding that the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) should reconsider the definition of minority in this context.

The plea has sought to declare section 2(c) of the NCM Act 1992 "void" and "inoperative" for being "arbitrary", "unreasonable" and "offending".