Plea in Supreme Court seeks to restrain Centre from implementing Sachar Committee report

New Delhi: A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking to restrain the Centre from acting upon the Sachar committee report, which was submitted in November 2006, and initiating any scheme in favour of the Muslim community. The committee, headed by former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court Justice Rajinder Sachar, was set up in March 2005 by the then UPA government to prepare a report on the social, economic and educational condition of the Muslim community in the country. The petition, filed by five residents of Uttar Pradesh, has alleged that notification issued from the Prime Minister’s Office on 9 March, 2005, on constituting the committee nowhere mentions the same was decided after a Cabinet decision. The petition said hence it is clear that the then prime minister on his own accord issued the direction appointing the committee to enquire into the social, economic and educational status of the Muslim community. Moreover, by the virtue of Articles 14 and 15 no religious community can be treated separately, claimed the plea, filed through advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain. It further alleged that the power to appoint a commission to investigate the conditions of socially and educationally backward classes vests with the President of India under Article 340 of the Constitution. The plea stated that every executive action or orders of the Government of India have to be taken or issued in the name of the President by virtue of provisions contained in Article 77(1) of the Constitution. It claimed that the appointment of the committee was made in violation of Article 77 and hence unconstitutional and illegal. The petition, while referring to the recommendations made in the report, alleged that the notification appointing the panel to look into the conditions of a community is unconstitutional in a secular state as the government cannot show any favour or disfavour to any religious community. It said the Centre must be restrained from implementing the report for running or initiating any scheme in favour of the Muslim community or for any other purpose.