The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a plea seeking the minority status for Hindus in seven Indian states and one Union Territory. The court told the petitioner to approach the National Commission for Minorities, ANI reported.

“We cannot issue such orders,” Justice Ranjan Gogoi told senior advocate Arvind Datar, who appeared for the petitioner Ashwini Upadhyaya, Live Law reported. “Go to the Commission..they are the most competent body,” the court said. Datar had argued that the plea was filed in the Supreme Court because the National Commission only dealt with decisions at the national level.

The public interest litigation filed by Upadhyay asked for minority status for Hindus in seven states and one Union territory. He said the rights of Hindus in these states were being taken away “illegally and arbitrarily” because neither the Centre nor the states notified them as a minority under the National Commission of Minorities Act.

The states named in the plea were Lakshadweep, Mizoram, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Jammu and Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Punjab. The petition had cited Census figures for the Hindu population in the states to show that they were in the minority.