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New Delhi: Supreme Court suo motu decided Wednesday to examine whether a person born to upper-caste affluent parents can convert to claim minority status and, thus, become eligible for admission to a minority educational institution.A brother-sister doctor duo from an affluent village got through NEET-PG and wanted to pursue their post-graduate medical courses in a particular medical institute in UP, whose claim to be a minority institution belonging to Buddhist community has been challenged. Their counsel argued before a bench of CJI Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi that the UP govt was not granting minority status to the institution and hampering their admissions to the institute.Being from Haryana, CJI Kant found that the brother-sister duo belonged to the affluent Satrod Kalan village in Hisar district. He scrutinised their NEET-PG application forms and discovered that both had applied under ‘general category’, but got minority certificates from sub-divisional officer at Hisar last year after allegedly converting to Buddhism.Raising doubts over the minority certificates, the justices asked the chief secretary of Haryana to inquire into the process adopted by the SDO and dismissed the siblings’ plea.
