by reference to religion, shall have to be determined by treating the State as a unit. The principle would remain the same whether it is a Central legislation or a State legislation dealing with a linguistic or religious minority. Khare, J. (as His Lordship then was), Quadri, J. and Variava and Bhan, JJ. in their separate concurring opinions agreed with Kirpal, C.J. According to Khare, J., take the population of any State as a unit, find out its demography and calculate if the persons speaking a particular language or following a particular religion are less than 50% of the population, then give them the status of linguistic or religious minority. The population of the entire country is irrelevant for the purpose of determining such status. Quadri, J. opined that the word “minority” literally means “a non-dominant” group. Ruma Pal, J. defined the word “minority” to mean “numerically less”. However, she refused to take the State as a unit for the purpose of determining minority status as, in her opinion, the question of minority status must be determined with reference to the country as a whole. She assigned reasons for the purpose. Needless to say, her opinion is a lone voice. Thus, with the dictum of Pai Foundation (supra) it cannot be doubted that a minority, whether linguistic or religious, is determinable only by reference to the demography of a State and not by taking into consideration the population of the country as a whole.”
