The Hindu : SC Bench includes `majority rights' too

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 12, 2002

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SC Bench includes `majority rights' too

By J. Venkatesan

NEW DELHI April 11. An 11-Judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, which is hearing a batch of about 200 petitions on the scope of the rights of the ``minorities'', has re-framed the questions to include ``majority'' rights to establish and administer educational institutions.

From April 2, the Bench headed by Justice B.N. Kirpal has been examining important questions of law relating to the ``minorities'' and ``religion'' for a re-look over these expressions.

After hearing some of the senior counsel for the petitioners, including F.S. Nariman, Shanti Bhushan, Rama Jois, Kapil Sibal and K.K. Venugopal, the Bench decided to enlarge the number of issues to 11, including questions relating to the rights of ``non-minorities''. The most crucial question included by the Bench was ``whether the non-minorities have the right to establish and administer educational institution under Articles 21 and 29 (1) (protection of interests of minorities) read with Articles 14 (equality before law) and 15 (1) (prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth) in the same manner and to the same extent as minority institution''.

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