Minority Educational Institutions

In one line

Every minority institution case turns on four questions, administration, admission, appointment and aid, and the answer to each depends on whether the institution takes State money.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: article 30(1) protects the right to establish and administer, and the extent of the protection has been worked out in a sequence of Constitution Bench decisions. In T.M.A. Pai Foundation v. State of Karnataka eleven judges held the State to be the unit for minority status, and drew the line between aided and unaided institutions. Islamic Academy of Education v. State of Karnataka set up fee and admission committees. P.A. Inamdar v. State of Maharashtra, seven judges, held that admissions to unaided minority institutions cannot be regulated by the State except as to eligibility and academic standards, and that no institution may charge a capitation fee. Parliament answered Inamdar with the Ninety-third Amendment inserting article 15(5), which expressly excepts minority institutions. Society for Un-aided Private Schools of Rajasthan v. Union of India held section 12(1)(c) of the Right to Education Act inapplicable to unaided minority schools, and Pramati Educational and Cultural Trust v. Union of India extended that to ALL minority schools, aided and unaided.

The four questions

Administration. Who runs the institution, appoints and disciplines its staff, and controls its managing body. This is the core of article 30(1), and The Ahmedabad St. Xavier's College Society v. State of Gujarat is where the line was drawn: regulation for standards is valid, transfer of control is not.

Admission. Whom the institution may admit, on what procedure, and how far it may prefer its own community. Here article 29(2) pulls the other way, and St. Stephen's College v. University of Delhi produced the fifty per cent rule for aided institutions.

Appointment. The choice, service conditions and discipline of teachers. Aid makes a difference: where the State pays salaries, service conditions may be regulated.

Aid. Whether the State gives money and on what terms. Article 30(2) forbids discrimination in aid on the ground of minority management; the Kerala Education Bill opinion forbids conditioning aid on surrender of the right.

The answer to all four is a sliding scale, and where an institution sits on that scale is fixed by aid.

The sequence

2002, eleven judges. In T.M.A. Pai Foundation v. State of Karnataka, (2002) 8 SCC 481; AIR 2003 SC 355. Facts. A Bench of eleven was constituted to settle the rights of minority and non-minority educational institutions under articles 19(1)(g), 29 and 30, and in particular how far the State may regulate admissions, fees and the appointment of staff in private aided and unaided institutions. Held. Among eleven answers, that the unit for determining a minority under article 30 is the STATE; that a private UNAIDED institution enjoys the greatest autonomy, an AIDED institution less; that the State may regulate in the interest of academic standards and against maladministration; and that the right to administer does not include a right to maladminister. Why it matters here is that it is the framework the rest of the sequence works within, and that the difference between aided and unaided became the organising distinction of the subject.