The High Court of Karnataka on Friday asked the State government to consider a representation of a petitioner for appointing a person from any minority community other than Muslim as the chairman of the Karnataka State Minorities Commission.
In his PIL petition, Vinod B. had complained that the State government had been appointing persons only from the Muslim community as chairman of the commission from the past three decades, beginning from 1983.
The petitioner claimed that he had submitted representations to the State government and the Chief Minister during 2013–14 bringing to their notice the fact that no person from other than Muslim community was allowed to head the commission.
Despite these representations, the government in November 2014 again appointed a person from the Muslim community to the post by ignoring other minority communities of the State.
As the head of the commission was always from one particular minority community, the funds received from both the State and Union governments were mainly utilised for the welfare and schemes aimed at people from the Muslim community, the petitioner claimed.
A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Subhro Kamal Mukherjee and Justice P.S. Dinesh Kumar, before whom the petition came up for hearing, asked the petitioner to submit another representation to the State within a fortnight and asked the State to consider his plea within two months of receipt of the representation.
