KOLKATA: The Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court, on Friday, declared the UP Board of Madrasa Education Act-2004 as ‘unconstitutional’, saying that a secular state had no power to create a board for religious education or to set up a board for school education only for a particular religion and philosophy associated with it.
Laying stress on the fact that the state had the foremost duty to ensure education, which is secular in nature, to the children, the division bench, comprising Justice Vivek Chaudhury and Justice Subhash Vidyarthi, held that the state cannot discriminate and create different education systems for children from different religions.
“Since providing education is one of the primary duties of the State, it is duty bound to remain secular while exercising its powers. It cannot provide for education of a particular religion, its instructions, philosophy, prescriptions or create separate education system for different religions,” said the bench while passing the order.
It added that any such action on the part of the State would violate the principles of secularism which was a basic structure of the Constitution of India. The court also observed that if any legislative Act of the State was violative of the basic structure of the Constitution, then it was bound to be struck down. In this regard, the court found the UP Board of Madrasa Education Act-2004 violative of the principles of secularism and the Constitution of India.
The bench observed that the education being provided under the Act was violative of the Articles 21 and 21A of the Constitution of India. “While the students of all other religions are getting educated in all modern subjects, denial of the same quality to the Madrasa Board students amounts to violation of both Article 21-A and Article 21,” bench said.