SC/ST, OBC quota would not apply to minority institutions: Madras HC

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The Madras High Court has held that the concept of communal reservation or reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other Backward Classes of citizens would not apply to minority institutions.

The first bench comprising Chief Justice S V Gangapurwala and Justice P D Audikesavalu gave the ruling while partly allowing an appeal and a petition from Justice Basheer Ahmed Syed College for Women (Autonomous) in the city, assailing a November 2021 order, rejecting the extension of religious minority status to the college.

The college also sought a direction to issue the Permanent Religious Minority status certificate.

Though reservation was made applicable to the socially and educationally Backward Classes of citizens, the SCs and the STs for admission, from the educational institutions, the minority educational institutions were consciously excluded from the operation of Article 15(5) of the Constitution of India, the bench said.

It noted that Article 15(5) of the Constitution does not empower the State to compel a minority educational institution to admit students from the Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes or Backward Classes of citizens.

A minority institution was permitted to admit 50 per cent of the students from a minority community and the remaining 50 per cent from other communities, it said.

In view of that also, the policy of Communal Reservation cannot be implemented i.e., reservation for the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes and the Other Backward Classes, the bench added.

Quashing the government order, which refused the extension of Religious (Muslim) Minority status to the petitioner institution, the court said in case the petitioner complies with all other requirements, then the authorities shall permit the college to function as a minority educational institution, unless the minority status was cancelled by the National Commission for Minority Educational institutions.

"The Minority status is not a tenure status, ergo is not for a limited period," the bench pointed out.

It further held that competent authority may adopt regulatory measures and supervisory measures, such as periodical calling for the list of members of the governing board of the college and the Memorandum and Bylaws, so as to monitor that the Institution was manned by the members of the minority.

The bench said the state government would be within its right to impose the threshold cap of admitting students from the minority community to 50 percent.

However, in the remaining 50 percent seats, filled on merit from the General Category, the students of the Minority Community can also compete and be admitted on merit and the same would not be counted in the 50 percent threshold cap meant for the minorities, the bench added.