New Delhi, July 19 (IANS): The Supreme Court on Friday sought the assistance of Attorney General K.K. Venugopal in dealing with a plea challenging the validity of a 26-year-old notification declaring five communities as minority. The order came when senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi submitted that the law on declaration of minority community on basis of national data was illegal. The court was hearing a petition filed by BJP leader and lawyer Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay. The court directed the petitioner to supply copy of the petition to the Attorney General and listed it for hearing after four weeks. The petitioner has challenged the validity of the National Commission for Minority Act, 1992, under which the notification was issued on October 23, 1993 declaring five communities -- Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis -- as minorities. Upadhyay also sought fresh guidelines to define the term minority, based on state-wise population of a community instead of the national average.
