Author: Abraham Thomas
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: October 6, 2011
URL: http://www.dailypioneer.com/pioneer-news/todays-newspaper/11407-sc-questions-scholarships-on-religious-lines.html
The UPA Government's ambitious schemes to
provide scholarships to underprivileged religious minority community students
have hit a constitutional bar. The Supreme Court has asked the Centre to explain
why such State-funded benefit should be restricted to only one section of
the people and not extended to every poor student irrespective of religion.
The court has set a one-month deadline for
the Centre to respond after the schemes were challenged for being violative
of the sacred Constitutional principle - non-discrimination on grounds of
religion.
Pune-based social worker Jyotika Wale, in
her petition, has questioned why the poor among the non-minorities should
be discriminated against by the Centre because such a classification would
create a divide and communal discord among the poor communities. The Bombay
High Court had dismissed her petition on June 6 this year.
But the apex Bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari
and Deepak Verma issued notice on Wale's appeal filed through advocate Aniruddha
Rajput giving Centre four weeks to respond.
Admittedly, out of the 18 per cent minority
population in the country, the bulk is constituted by Muslims (13.4 per cent)
and Christians (2 per cent) followed by Sikhs, Buddhists, and Parsis. The
petition said that the scholarship was aimed to benefit only some religious
communities which are prohibited under Article 15(1).
The scheme titled "Merit-cum-Means Scholarships
for Minority Students" launched in 2008 announced pre-Matric and post-Matric
scholarships for families earning Rs 1 lakh per annum and Rs 2.5 lakh per
annum respectively. Subject to availability of funds, the scholarship of Rs
950 per annum for day-scholar and Rs 1,450 per annum for hosteller was available
under the first scheme while for post-matric scheme, Rs 30,000 per annum (hosteller)
and Rs 25,000 (day-scholar) was earmarked.
The Centre defended the scheme based on two
documents - Prime Minister's 15-point programme and the Justice Rajinder Sachar
Committee report on "Social, economic and educational status of the Muslim
community of India". While the second document discussed the socio-educational
backwardness of Muslims and not minorities as a whole, the PM's 15-point agenda
announced in 2006 took a broad view on enhancing education opportunities among
minorities. With no evidence of backwardness among other minority communities,
the petitioner argued that the benefits would be cornered by Muslims alone.
Before the HC, the Centre projected economics
of poverty to justify the scheme by citing the 11th Five Year Plan guaranteeing
inclusive growth of SC/ST/OBC and minorities.
The scheme, it suggested benefited both the
poor and the minorities at an annual budget of Rs 675 crore, a miniscule of
the total spending of Rs 33,954 crore on school education and Rs 15,402 on
higher education spent annually by the Centre. In addition, the schemes had
a 30 per cent reservation for girls.
The scheme's economic viability coupled with
the fact that the majority still has many scholarships to avail from, the
HC approved the scheme. But in doing so, the petitioner pointed out that the
scheme encouraged backwards to remain backward and for Dalits who converted
to Muslim, Christianity, Sikh or Buddhist faith, it became an added incentive.
