The Supreme Court on Friday overruled its 1967 judgement, which had held that an educational institution set up by an Act of Parliament cannot claim to be a minority institution, Live Law reported.
A Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna, Surya Kant, JB Pardiwala, Dipankar Datta, Manoj Misra and Satish Chandra Sharma, was hearing a batch of petitions relating to the minority status of Aligarh Muslim University.
In the 1967 Azeez Basha judgement, the court had held Aligarh Muslim University to be a central university. The judgement also said that Article 29 and Article 30 of the Constitution cannot be conferred on it to grant a minority status.
Article 29 of the Constitution ensures that citizens are not denied admission based on their religion, race, caste, or language to educational institutions maintained by the state.
Article 30 guarantees that the state shall not discriminate on matters of granting aid against any educational institution on the basis that it is managed by a minority group. It also says that all minorities, whether based on religion or language, have the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice.
“We have held that to be a minority institution it only had to be established by the minority and not necessarily be administered by the minority members,” said Chandrachud while pronouncing the 4:3 majority judgement, reported Bar and Bench. “Minority institutions may wish to emphasise secular education and for that minority members are not needed in administration.”
The chief justice said that whether the university is a minority institution will be decided by a regular bench based on the tests laid down by the court in this judgement.
“The court has to consider the genesis of the institute and the court must see who was the brain behind the establishment of the institution,” he said. “It has to be seen who got funds for the land and if minority community helped.”
The court also held that Article 30 applies to even those minority institutions that were established before the Constitution came into force, reported Bar and Bench.
“Article 30 shall stand diluted if it applies to only institutes those which have been established after the Constitution came into force,” said the court.
Kant, Datta and Sharma wrote a dissenting judgement.
The case was argued over eight hearings in January and February. The bench had reserved its verdict on February 1.
The current petitions stem from the 1967 decision by a five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court and a 2005 decision by the Allahabad High Court.
In 2005, the university reserved 50% of seats in its postgraduate medical courses for Muslim students. This was challenged before the Allahabad High Court, which struck down the reservation on the ground that the university was not a minority educational institution as per the Supreme Court’s 1967 ruling.
The High Court’s decision was soon challenged before the Supreme Court by the university and the Union government.
In 2006, a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court stayed the reservation policy, referring the case to a larger bench.
Also read: Explained: The legal tussle over Aligarh Muslim University’s minority status