SC agrees to hear plea against HC order on appointment of minorities corporation chairman

The Supreme Court Wednesday agreed to hear a plea challenging the Karnataka High Court order which had dismissed a petition seeking a direction to the state to appoint members from non-Muslim minority communities also as the chairman of the Karnataka Minorities Development Corporation Limited.

The apex court issued notices to the Karnataka government and others seeking their responses on the plea which said that except the IAS officers in charge, the persons belonging from the Muslim community alone are appointed as chairman of the corporation from its incorporation in 1986 till date.

“Issue notice, returnable in six weeks,” a bench of Justices Vineet Saran and Aniruddha Bose said.

Advocate G S Mani appeared for the Bengaluru-based petitioner, Anil Antony, in the top court.

The plea claimed that the high court, which had passed the order in January last year, had failed to consider that discrimination was done to the persons belonging from other minority religions — Christians, Sikhs, Parsis, Jains, and Buddhists — in the matter of appointment of the chairman of the corporation.

“There is a clear violation of fundamental rights of equality guaranteed under Article 14 of the Constitution in not giving equal representation to the other minority religions in the matter of appointment of the chairperson to the second respondent, Karnataka Minorities Development Corporation Limited,” the plea said. In its order, the high court had noted that the substantive prayer made in the petition before it was for a direction to the state to appoint members from Christian, Sikh, Parsi, Jain, and Buddhist communities also as the chairperson of the corporation on a rotation basis within the time frame fixed by the court.

While dismissing the plea, the high court had said, “A writ of mandamus cannot be issued unless a legal obligation on the part of the respondents is shown to do a particular thing. In absence of any legal obligation, the prayer sought for in this writ petition cannot be granted.” The plea filed in the apex court said the main objective of the corporation is to extend loan facilities to the poorest of the poor among the minorities so as to enable them to become self-reliant and also to provide social justice, infrastructure, education, and employment. “The government cannot confer benefits of the chairperson of the corporation only to the one minority religion ignoring the rights of other religious minorities,” it said.