‘Centre, J&K giving minority benefits to majority Muslims for decades’

A public interest litigation filed in the Supreme Court has claimed that the National Commission of Minorities under the Ministry of Minority Affairs and the state government of Jammu and Kashmir, for decades, have been “illegally and arbitrarily” giving benefits of schemes meant for minorities in the rest of the country, to the majority Muslim population of the state.

Last week, the Supreme Court, which in July 2016 issued notices to the Central government and the J&K government, imposed a fine of Rs 15,000 on both for not filing a reply on the matter. The SC will hear the matter again in four weeks’ time. The petitioner, Ankur Sharma, a Jammu based lawyer, had moved the Supreme Court seeking the suspension of all minority schemes in Jammu and Kashmir on the