Regulation by a statute not a bar on institute’s minority status, SC observes

The Supreme court on Tuesday observed that merely because an educational institution is regulated by a statute does not take away from it the character of a minority institution. A seven-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud on Tuesday commenced hearing the vexed question of minority status of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU).

The constitution bench referred to Article 30 of the Constitution which deals with the right of minorities to establish and administer educational institutions. The Bench observed that “Now, there is no absolute standard of administration that you must administer 100 per cent… So, to make Article 30 effective, we do not have to postulate that the administration by the minority has to be an absolute administration.

“In that sense, today in a regulated society, in a regulated state, nothing is absolute. Virtually every aspect of life is regulated in some way or the other. So, merely because the right to administer is regulated by a statute and, to certain extent is not untrammelled, does not detract from the minority character of the institution,”it added.
The top court had on February 12, 2019 referred to a seven-judge bench the hugely contentious issue of the minority status of AMU.