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Journalism of Courage
If and when the Aligarh Muslim University appeals against the Allahabad High Court verdict, the Supreme Court will have to reconcile two conflicting declarations on its minority character.
While a Constitution bench of the apex court denied the minority character of AMU in 1967, Parliament did just the opposite through a 1981 enactment.
The Constitution bench, headed by Justice K N Wanchoo, laid down a condition that any institution will have to fulfil before it can avail itself of the special rights conferred on minorities by Article 30 of the Constitution. The apex court said, ‘‘The minorities will have the right to administer educational institutions of their choice provided they have established them, but not otherwise.’’
Accordingly, the Supreme Court held that AMU was not a minority institution as the university was established in 1920 by the Central Legislature. What a group of Muslims had set up earlier in Aligarh was a college, which was incorporated in the university in 1920.
‘‘It was the Central Legislature which brought into existence the Aligarh University (in 1920) and must be held to have established it,’’ the court said in its 1967 judgment in the Aziz Basha case.
In 1981, the Indira Gandhi Government sought to get around this judgment by changing its legislative basis. Since the judgment was based on the premise that the 1920 Act had ‘‘established’’ the university, the amendments enacted in 1981 specifically attributed the founding of AMU to Muslims.
The key amendments enacted to affirm AMU’s minority character:
• The word ‘‘establish’’ was omitted from the long title and preamble to the Act. The title originally said: ‘‘An Act to establish and incorporate a teaching and residential Muslim University at Aligarh.’’ The amended title reads: ‘‘An Act to incorporate a teaching …’’
• The definition of ‘‘university’’ was changed in the Act to make a statutory declaration that AMU was established by the Muslims of India. The amended Section 2(l) reads: ‘‘University means the educational institution of their choice established by the Muslims of India, which originated as the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College, Aligarh, and which was subsequently incorporated as Aligarh Muslim University.’’
• The university was empowered by Section 5(2)(c) ‘‘to promote especially the educational and cultural advancement of the Muslims of India.’’
It was on the basis of the 1981 amendments that a 50 per cent quota was introduced this year for Muslims.
