Minority status of educational institution is not for limited period: Madras High Court

CHENNAI: Holding that minority status accorded to an educational institution is not for a limited period, the Madras High Court has quashed a Tamil Nadu government order cancelling such status to a Muslim minority-run college in Chennai city.

The first bench of Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice PD Audikesavalu recently ruled, “The minority status is not a tenure status, ergo is not for a limited period.”

However, the competent authority can take up regulatory and supervisory measures by reviewing the profile of governing board members, the memorandum and the bylaws, of the educational institution, it said. 

The order was passed on the petitions filed by Justice Basheer Ahmed Sayeed College for Women challenging a single judge’s order and the Tamil Nadu government’s 2021 GO cancelling the minority status on the grounds of violating the regulations of admitting only 50% of students from the minority community.

Saying that ‘social reservation’ need not be maintained by the institutions administered and managed by the minorities, the court stated that the State government would be within its right to impose a threshold cap of 50% for admission to minority community students.

“However, in the remaining 50% seats, filled on merit from the general category, the students of the minority community can be admitted on merit and the same would not be counted in the 50% quota for the minority students,” it ruled.

Underscoring the fact that cancellation of minority status to an educational institution vests only with the National Commission Minority Educational Institutions, the bench further explained that “admitting more than 50% students from the minority community would not ipso facto (by that fact) permit the cancellation of status.”

Besides quashing the November 20, 2021 GO for cancelling the minority status, the court also said that if the college complies with all other requirements, it shall be permitted to function as a minority institution unless the Commission cancels its status. 

Senior counsel Vijay Narayan appeared for the petitioner while Advocate General (AG) R Shunmugasundaram represented the State government.