Tags:
Journalism of Courage
The complexity of Friday’s Supreme Court judgement on the running of minority institutions in the field of education is reflected in the differing ways it has been interpreted by constitutional experts, educationists and the media. But this is perhaps inevitable, given the fact that it was a complicated issue that was being decided; that it involved the largest judicial bench in 30 years of 11 judges; that their lordships were expected to look into no less than 11 aspects of a sensitive issue; and also that it was a 317-page order! A number of cases had accumulated over the years on the often contentious issue of the right of minorities to establish and run educational institutions of their choice and fresh clarity was urgently required. This was what the apex court attempted to provide and, hopefully, over time some of the unresolved doubts that have arisen as a consequence of this judgement will be clarified.
Much depends on how the judgement gets translated into actual practice. One of the apprehensions expressed was that the state can now interfere more directly in the administration of minority educational institutions than earlier — and not just in government-aided institutions at that. Not only can the state now decide the percentage of non-minority students to be admitted to an aided minority-run institution, it can introduce regulations to ensure ‘educational excellence’ in an unaided one. The court has also set aside the 50 per cent quota that was granted to aided minority institutions so that they could admit candidates of their choice. The fear is that in the current climate where communal harmony has been vitiated in several parts of the country, state involvement may turn out to be blatant interference, dictated by an agenda that may have little to do with the requirements of ‘educational excellence’. There is a fear that if state governments do not exercise scrupulous care and sensitivity in this matter, they could seriously undermine the right of the minorities to establish and administer their own educational institutions as guaranteed by Article 30 of the Constitution.
Interestingly, one aspect of this judgement goes beyond just minority-run institutions to include all colleges offering professional courses. The apex court, by overturning the 1993 Unni Krishnan judgement, practically opened this sector to market forces. Even while it decreed that there must be no profiteering by means of capitation fees, it allowed these institutions to charge a ‘reasonable surplus’ to make their functioning sustainable and to allow for augmentation and improvement. Such an approach could go some way into reforming this sector, something that long needed to be done.
