Minority Scholarship: Govt directs Law dept to study HC verdict for deciding further action

Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala government directed the law department to study the High Court verdict on minority scholarship and file a report to the Chief Minister. The government will decide on further action including an appeal over the verdict after examining the report.

P Rajeev, minister for law declared that the government will take action over the verdict after studying it in detail.
He pointed out that the scope of seeking legal advice of the Advocate General will be considered.

When Christian outfits welcomed the court order, political parties including Muslim League and Muslim organisations have been demanding that the government should move an appeal against the HC order. Hence, the government has been facing a dilemma as whatever be the decision it will irk one of the groups.

Examining this, the government sought the help of the law department.

After scrutinizing the High Court order, the department will examine each reason which influenced the court to pronounce the verdict.

A report will be prepared based on this and submitted to the Chief Minister.

The Kerala High Court on Friday held that the action of the state government in sub classifying the minorities by providing merit-cum-means scholarship at 80 per cent to the Muslim community and 20 per cent to the Latin Catholic Christians and converted Christians cannot be legally sustained.

The division bench comprising Chief Justice S Manikumar and Justice Shaji P Chaly ruled that the benefits should be in proportion to the population of the various minorities.

The High Court also asked to take the current census into account. The court’s ruling came on a plea filed by Advocate Justin Pallivathukkal.