"We must also remember that the scheme pertains to

scholarship in primary education and cannot be equated with any kind of reservation. In other words, as an affirmative action or as is often referred to as a reverse discrimination, it amounts to preferential diversion of public funds in favour of a class of citizens. "Nevertheless, the impact of such a scheme is vastly different from any reservation in education or public employment," the majority opinion said. "We do not see how allocating funds to a limited number of otherwise eligible students on the basis of availability of such funds can either be discriminatory or lead to any dissatisfaction amongst those who are left out. "In our opinion, the scheme is based not only on religion, but draws a classification on the basis of class of citizens grouped together, who have been identified as underprivileged and suffering from certain handicaps," it said. "Suffice it to conclude that grouping of such minorities do not form a heterogeneous class and particularly when numerically predominant minority is shown on the basis of research to be falling behind in overall national development in fields of education, employment and economy, the Scheme in our opinion, cannot be struck down", it further said. "The basis for framing of the scheme is not religion, but improvement of the conditions of such disadvantaged group. If religion were the sole basis for grouping the minorities for a preferential treatment and excluding the rest, that would be another issue," it said. The verdict said that it does not violate Article 15 (1) of the Constitution and direction should be given to the state government to implement the scheme. The Article 15 (1) says that state shall not discriminate against any citizen on the grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them.