CHENNAI: Holding that minority status accorded to an educational institution is not for a limited period, the Madras High Court has quashed a Tamil Nadu government order cancelling such status to a Muslim minority-run college in Chennai city.
The first bench of Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice PD Audikesavalu recently ruled, “The minority status is not a tenure status, ergo is not for a limited period.”
However, the competent authority can take up regulatory and supervisory measures by reviewing the profile of governing board members, the memorandum and the bylaws, of the educational institution, it said.
The order was passed on the petitions filed by Justice Basheer Ahmed Sayeed College for Women challenging a single judge’s order and the Tamil Nadu government’s 2021 GO cancelling the minority status on the grounds of violating the regulations of admitting only 50% of students from the minority community.
Saying that ‘social reservation’ need not be maintained by the institutions administered and managed by the minorities, the court stated that the State government would be within its right to impose a threshold cap of 50% for admission to minority community students.
The bench said the state government would be within its right to impose the threshold cap of admitting students from the minority community to 50 per cent.
However, in the remaining 50 per cent seats, filled on merit from the General Category, the students of the Minority Community can also compete and be admitted on merit and the same would not be counted in the 50 per cent threshold cap meant for the minorities, the bench added.
Underscoring the fact that cancellation of minority status to an educational institution vests only with the National Commission Minority Educational Institutions, the bench further explained that "admitting more than 50% students from the minority community would not ipso facto (by that fact) permit the cancellation of status."
Quashing the government order, which refused the extension of Religious (Muslim) Minority status to the petitioner institution, the court said in case the petitioner complies with all other requirements, then the authorities shall permit the college to function as a minority educational institution, unless the minority status was cancelled by the National Commission for Minority Educational institutions.
"The Minority status is not a tenure status, ergo is not for a limited period," the bench pointed out.
Senior counsel Vijay Narayan appeared for the petitioner while Advocate General (AG) R Shunmugasundaram represented the State government.