NEW DELHI, 19 December 2009: Christians groups across the country have welcomed the Government tabling the report of the Justice Rangnath Misra Commission, and have urged the government to immediately implement its important recommendation that Christians and Muslims of Dalit origin be given the same benefits now given to Scheduled Castes professing Hinduism, Buddhism or Sikhism as their religion.

The statement was issued by Dr John Dayal, Member, and National Integration Council, on behalf of the All India Christian Council, the All India Catholic Union, the United Christian Action and the Union of Dalit Christian Associations India. Dalit Union President Adv Edward Arockiadoss and Dr John Dayal had in a delegation together with members of Parliament Ali Anwar and D Seelam met Union Law minister Moily and other political leaders earlier this week demanding that the report be tabled and its recommendations implemented. "Justice has been done by the Misra commission. It is now for the Government to do justice," Dr Dayal said.

The government has now to inform the Supreme Court about the recommendations of the report of the Misra commission, set up in 2004, as the apex court is hearing a bunch of writ petitions by Christian and other groups on the issue. The report had been cold storage more than two years.

Justice Misra, a former chief justice of India, has accepted the demand raised by Dalit Christians for 59 years urging the Government not to discriminate against them on grounds of their religion, but to once again extend to them the political, economic and development privileges accorded all Dalits by the Constitution of India when it was signed into law on 26th January 1950. These rights were taken away brutally by the Presidential Order of 1950 which strengthened the right wing fundamentalist religious lobby and which continues to constitute a slur on the Secular foundations of the Indian Nation.

The commission has accepted that caste transcends religion and caste discrimination is present in all religious communities.

The National Commission for Religious Linguistic Minorities has also strongly recommended that there should be a law earmarking 15 per cent seats for the minorities, including 10 per cent for Muslims, in all general educational institutions.

"As by the force of judicial decisions the minority intake in minority educational institutions has, in the interest of national integration, been restricted to about 50 per cent, thus virtually earmarking 50 per cent or so for the majority community, we strongly recommend that, by the same analogy and for the same purpose, at least 15 per cent seats in all non-minority educational institutions should be earmarked by law for the minorities," the report of the commission tabled in the Lok Sabha on Friday said. To ameliorate their economic condition, the Commission has suggested earmarking of 15 per cent of the total share for minorities in all government Schemes.