A view of the Supreme Court
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A seven-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud on Tuesday observed that an educational institution does not lose its minority status merely on the ground that its administration is regulated by a statute.
“Being regulated by a statute does not detract it [an educational institution] from having a minority status. If the right of administration is regulated by statute, there is no bar to minority status,” Chief Justice Chandrachud observed.
The court noted that an educational institution need not offer just religious courses. Article 30 (the right of minorities to establish and administer educational institutions) of the Constitution does not envisage that the administration of the educational institution ought to be absolutely by the members of a minority community.
The administration could be secular and students from any community could get admission, the Bench noted.
The Bench was hearing a case related to the minority status of the Aligarh Muslim University.
Senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan, appearing for Aligarh Muslim University, said private and minority institutions were at the heart of education in India. They are the very soul of secularism in a country filled with diversity, he noted.
He said standards of examination and curricula were regulated by the state for all universities, whether they be minority-run or not.
The court is considering a reference on questions about the indices for treating an educational institution as a minority educational institution.
One of the questions before the Constitution Bench is whether an institution could be regarded as a minority educational institution for the reason that it was “established by a person(s) belonging to a religious or linguistic minority or its being administered by a person(s) belonging to a religious or linguistic minority”.
The points of reference in the case stemmed from a 1967 judgment by a five-judge Bench of the court in S. Azeez Basha vs Union of India, which validated amendments made to the Aligarh Muslim University Act of 1920.
The Basha judgment had concluded that the varsity was a central university and minority status cannot be conferred on it.