Supreme Court rules on Aligarh Muslim University’s minority status: The case, explained

Here is a background of the case.

History of the AMU dispute

The legal dispute over the university’s minority status is more than a half century old.

In 1967, the Supreme Court ruled on a challenge to two amendments to the university’s founding Act, which argued that they deprived the Muslim community, which had set up AMU, of the right to administer it under Article 30.

The first of these amendments, in 1951, allowed non-Muslims to be members of the University Court, its supreme governing body at the time, and replaced the university’s Lord Rector with the Visitor, who was the President of India. The second, in 1965, expanded the powers of AMU’s Executive Council, which meant the University Court would no longer be the supreme governing body.

The Supreme Court held that AMU was neither established nor administered by the Muslim minority — rather, it came into existence through an Act of the central legislature (Aligarh Muslim University Act, 1920). (S Azeez Basha vs Union of India, 1967)

Faced with a backlash over the ruling, the government amended the AMU Act in 1981, saying that it was established by the Muslim community to promote the cultural and educational advancement of Muslims in India.

In 2005, AMU for the first time provided 50% reservation for Muslims in postgraduate medical programs. The following year, Allahabad High Court struck down both the university order, and the 1981 amendment on the ground that AMU was not a minority institution as per Azeez Basha.

The HC order was challenged in the SC soon afterward. In 2019, the matter was referred to a seven-judge Bench. Friday’s verdict will decide whether Azeez Basha will be overruled — or effectively, whether AMU is a minority institution protected by Article 30 (“Right of minorities to establish and administer educational institutions”).

What minority status means

Under Article 15(5), introduced in the Constitution in 2006, minority educational institutions are exempt from reserving seats for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Since AMU’s minority status is sub judice, and the SC directed in 2006 that status quo be maintained, the university does not have SC/ST quotas.

The Centre argued before the Supreme Court this year that if AMU is declared a minority institution, “it will continue not to provide for reservation for SCs/STs/OBCs/EWS, [in jobs and seats, but] it will provide for reservation for Muslims which can be up to 50 per cent or even more”.

Also, “the administrative structure” of AMU “will change from the current set-up which provides for the supremacy of Executive Council consisting of people from various fields of life with domain expertise” — and despite being an institution of national importance, AMU would have an admission procedure separate from other such institutions.

The Centre also argued that “a large national institute like AMU ought to maintain its secular origins and serve the larger interest of the nation first”.

Submissions made on behalf of AMU stated that it was “fallacious” for the Centre to hold that AMU’s minority status “would be contrary to public interest as it would exempt them from reserving seats for other disadvantaged groups”, since this negates the Constitutional provision that shields special rights of minorities.

On reservation not being applicable to AMU, senior advocate Kapil Sibal stated in a rejoinder note submitted on behalf of the AMU Old Boys’ (Alumni) Association that “Article 30 is itself a recognition of rights of communities that also require special protection”. Therefore, the exemption for minority educational institutions provided by Article 15(5) is “not an exception to equality but simply a different facet of it, which seeks to balance the needs of different sections of society whether on the basis of religion, or caste and class”.

The St Stephen’s reference

In 1992, the SC referred to the minority status of Delhi’s St Stephen’s College, its right to administer the institution, and to have its own admission process (St. Stephen’s College vs University of Delhi). The college reserves 50% of seats for Christian students.

In its arguments, the Centre submitted that St Stephen’s was founded by the “Cambridge Mission in Delhi in collaboration with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG)… [and] there was no government involvement”, while AMU was created by an Act of Parliament.

Also, St Stephen’s was housed in premises that were rented, and subsequently built, by the SPG, while AMU has “from the outset [been] in receipt of government grants…”.

Sibal, however, argued that in St Stephen’s, the SC had held that “the right to administer is meant to be interpreted as a continuing right to administer on part of the minority community establishing the university and not a test for the identification of an MEI (minority educational institution)”. Thus, “once a minority establishes an educational institution, that institution becomes the subject of the ‘right to administer’ under Article 30”.

Senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan submitted on behalf of AMU: “…There are universities such as Aliah University (Kolkata) and colleges such as St Stephen’s College fully aided by the government”, which implies that “the government recognizes that even if an institution is fully funded by the government, it does not lose its minority status”.