KOZHIKODE: CPM state committee member and Kannur district secretary M V Jayarajan has come out strongly against the High Court verdict on the minority scholarship saying that the court did not consider the social realities of the state while pronouncing the order.Addressing an online seminar titled ‘Minority welfare scheme: Court verdict and the facts’ organised by Kerala Muslim Jama’at, he said, unfortunately, the court order will not help in solving the backwardness in all communities.
It is for the first time a senior CPM leader is coming out in the open against the High Court verdict nullifying the 80:20 ratio in distribution of minority scholarship schemes between Muslims and Latin Christians/converted Christians.“The court should have examined the social conditions in the state correctly. It should have conducted a thorough study on the circumstances that led to sanctioning of the scholarships according to Paloli committee recommendations in 2008,” he said.
The CPM leader added that if there was an issue of time for presenting the different views in the court due to Covid, the court could have entrusted someone with studying the issue in detail.Jayarajan said the contention that everyone is equal before the law is true. It is not wrong to say that Christian community should also get scholarships like Muslims because the former too is a minority community. That is why the LDF government set up the J B Koshy committee to study the backwardness of the Christian community. The government will think about the measures to be taken to address the Christian community’s backwardness on the basis of the committee’s recommendations, he said.
Minister M V Govindan had earlier stated that the government is duty bound to implement the court order. In a Facebook post, politburo member M A Baby said the government will find an amicable settlement to the issue following the court order.But the government has not really opened up its mind as to what it is going to do on the issue. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had announced that the government would set up an expert panel and seek legal advice before proceeding further. But the IUML protested the formation of another committee as it would only cause delay in settling the issue.
Syed Ibrahim Khaleelul Bukhari Thangal, general secretary of the Kerala Muslim Jama’at, said the organisation is trying to convince everyone that justice in this case is with the Muslims. Asked whether he saw any change in the CPM’s line on the issue, Thangal said he could comment only when the party comes up with an official announcement. “We are happy that positive changes are happening in society. We will organise such seminars in all districts,” he said.CPI leader Pannyan Raveendran, T Siddique, MLA, IUML leader K K Abid Hussein Thangal and INL general secretary Kasim Irikkur attended the seminar.