A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court has upheld the appointment of P.K. Haneefa and Muhammed Faisal as Chairman and member respectively of the Kerala State Commission for Minorities.
The Bench comprising Chief Justice S. Manikumar and Justice Shaji P. Chali passed the verdict while dismissing a public interest litigation filed by Justine Pallivathukkal of Palakkad challenging the appointments to the posts of Chairman and members of the commission from the same community.
According to the petitioner, the action of the State government in appointing both the Chairman and the other member from the Muslim community was arbitrary and amounted to negation of interests of the other minority communities.
The petitioner also challenged the Kerala State Commission for Minorities (Amendment) Ordinance, 2017 which allows the government to appoint Chairman and members from the same minority community. As per the 2014 Act, the Chairman and the other members of the commission should be from different communities, the petitioner said.
The court said what was relevant and important was the purpose for which the commission had been constituted and not the community of the members of the commission, which had no role to play in discharging the functions. The reason that the Chairman and a member belonged to the same community, would, in any manner, interfere with the power and functions conferred on them under the Act, the court asked.
The court said it might be true that the Kerala State Commission for Minorities Act of 1992 and 2014 insisted that the Chairperson and members, substantial in number, should belong to the minority community.
The court added that what was to be looked into was the purpose and intention of the legislation, rather than the community of the Chairperson and members of the commission appointed by the government.
Dismissing the petition, the court also observed that it did not find “any unreasonableness or other legal infirmities in the amendment brought to the Act in 2017”.
