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7-judge Bench to decide on AMU status

NEW DELHI:The Supreme Court today referred to a seven-judge Constitution Bench the issue of minority status for Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) — three years after the NDA government sought to withdraw the Centre’s appeal against an Allahabad HC verdict that it was not a minority institution.

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Satya Prakash
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, February 12

The Supreme Court today referred to a seven-judge Constitution Bench the issue of minority status for Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) — three years after the NDA government sought to withdraw the Centre’s appeal against an Allahabad HC verdict that it was not a minority institution.

A three-judge Bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and comprising Justices L Nageswara Rao and Sanjiv Khanna, agreed with the submission of the AMU that the correctness of the 2006 judgment of the Allahabad HC, by which the minority tag to the university was taken away, needed to be examined.

On behalf of AMU, senior counsel Rajeev Dhavan contended the constitutional issues involved were important as the top court in its seven-judge Bench verdict in the TMA Pai case in 2002 did not clarify as to what should be the requirement for establishing a minority institution. There was a need to examine it, he said. The AMU and the then UPA government had challenged the 2006 Allahabad HC verdict in the SC.

  The BJP-led NDA government had in 2016 told the SC that it would withdraw the appeal filed by its predecessor government as “the previous stand was wrong”.

It said a five-judge Constitution Bench in 1968 in the Aziz Basha case had held that AMU was a “central university” and not a minority institution. It maintained that AMU was not a minority institution as it was set up by the government and not Muslims.

After the 1968 verdict, the AMU (Amendment) Act, 1972, and thereafter 1981 came into force. The Allahabad HC had in January 2006 struck down the provision of the 1981 amendment Act by which the university was accorded the minority status.

Dhavan said there was contradiction in the Aziz Basha judgment by the five-judge Bench as it said that minority institution can be established but if it is established by a statute it cannot be given a tag of minority institution.

Further, he said the issue needs to be examined in the backdrop of the fact that the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions has been established by the government to protect and safeguard the educational institutions which are established by the religious minorities.

if declared minority institution...

  • If SC declares AMU a minority institution, SCs, STs and OBCs will not get reservation in admission
  • It’s a contentious issue in UP, where the BJP is seeking to project it as an example of Muslim appeasement at the cost of the rights of SCs, STs and Backward Classes, which don’t get quota benefit in admission
  • The verdict would set a judicial precedent for a similar legal battle over the status for the Jamia Milia Islamia University, which was declared a minority institution in 2011
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