BENGALURU:While informing the Karnataka High Court that the recommendation sent by the Karnataka government on granting minority religious status to Lingayat-Veerashaivas was pending before the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Union government on Tuesday said a similar proposal sent by the state government earlier was rejected by the Ministry of Home Affairs on November 14, 2013.
Additional Solicitor General Prabhuling K Navadgi made this submission and produced a copy of the order of the Centre which rejected the state’s proposal, in support of his submission before a division bench of Chief Justice Dinesh Maheshwari and Justice Krishna S Dixit which is hearing a batch of PIL challenging the panel constituted by the then Siddaramaiah-led government to look into the demand.
In the statement filed before the HC, it was stated that the National Commission for Minorities had observed that Veerashaiva-Lingayat is a sect of Hindus and is not an independent religion, after considering the socio-historic perspective of Lingayats. “It was also observed by the National Commission that if the Veerashaiva-Lingayat is treated as a separate religion by providing minority status, then all the SCs professing Veerashaiva-Lingayat sect will lose their constitutional status as the SCs can only be from Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh religions. The Registrar General of India on November 14, 2013, had stated that no separate code is required to be given to Veerashaiva-Lingayats,” the order of 2013 said.
As far as the recent proposal sent by Karnataka government is concerned, the Additional Solicitor General said there was no prescribed criteria for declaring any community as a religious minority under the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992. However, for deciding any community as a minority, advice of various Central government Ministry/Departments, the National Commission for Minorities and other concerned organisation, the views of stakeholders are required to be taken into consideration.