Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has called a virtual all-party meeting on June 4 to discuss the minority scholarships issue.
This comes days after the Kerala High Court held that the action of the state government in sub-classifying the minorities by providing merit-cum-means scholarship cannot be legally sustained.
The High Court order was issued on a petition filed by Justin Pallivathukkal, a native of Palakkad district against the 2015 order.
According to the petition, “Separating minorities into Muslims and Christians is against secularism. The government benefits should be made available to all minorities in proportion to their population.”
Earlier, the state government appointed a committee to study the educational and economic backwardness of the Christian backward classes. The committee was led by Justice JB Koshy. The government had submitted the committee’s report to the court. The court also considered this while hearing the petition.
The state government had sub-classified the minorities by providing merit-cum-means scholarship at 80 per cent to Muslim community and 20 per cent to the Latin Catholic Christians and converted Christians.