NEW DELHI, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- India's Supreme Court on Friday rejected a plea seeking minority status for the country's majority Hindus in some of the states.
A bench, headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi, refused to admit the public interest litigation plea, saying the National Commission for Minorities is the right forum to take a call on the issue.
The apex court asked the petitioner -- India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party leader Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, who is also a lawyer -- to approach the minorities commission.
Upadhyay has sought minority status for the Hindus in states like Mizoram, Nagaland, Meghalaya and Manipur in the northeast and Indian-controlled Kashmir and Punjab in the north.
The petition claims that Hindus are minority in these states but their legitimate benefits are being siphoned of arbitrarily to the majority because of the non-identification of their status.
As of now, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Zoroastrians (Parsis) and Jains are notified as minority communities in India.
