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NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Wednesday said no minority institution, fully funded by government, can impart religious teaching of any kind to its students while also stressing that even partially funded minority institutions cannot insist on compulsory religious teaching.
A bench of CJI D Y Chandrachud and Justices Sanjiv Khanna, Surya Kant, J B Pardiwala, Dipankar Datta, Manoj Misra and Satish Sharma made the observation when solicitor general Tushar Mehta pointed out that Parliament, through the 1951 amendment to the AMU Act, 1920, did away with compulsory religious teaching for Muslim students in the university.
Justice Khanna said, “We accept the position that a minority institution, wholly funded by the state, cannot impart any religious teaching to its students. When it receives any grant, even if one per cent of its budget comes from government, the minority institution can provide religious teaching only to students volunteering for it.”
The bench also said once a minority institution gets recognition from government, it cannot insist on compulsory religious teaching to its students.
Mehta said these conditions, emerging from government grants, applied equally to all, irrespective of whether they were minority or non-minority educational institutions.
The bench said a Rs 30 lakh reserve fund was created by Muslims to meet the pre-condition for getting statutory recognition for Aligarh Muslim University and asked whether that was not an indication of Muslims establishing AMU and a ground for conferment of minority status on the university.
Mehta said Rs 30 lakh was not wholly contributed by Muslims as there were contributions from other communities too. While stressing that the historical non-minority character codified through the AMU Act could not be changed on post-Constitution considerations, he said AMU and BHU, set up on identical lines in 1920 and 1915, used to receive Rs 1 lakh per annum grant from the British government.
“AMU at present gets Rs 1,570 crore grants in aid from the government annually. It is an institution of national importance and ranks high among eminent universities,” he added.
A bench of CJI D Y Chandrachud and Justices Sanjiv Khanna, Surya Kant, J B Pardiwala, Dipankar Datta, Manoj Misra and Satish Sharma made the observation when solicitor general Tushar Mehta pointed out that Parliament, through the 1951 amendment to the AMU Act, 1920, did away with compulsory religious teaching for Muslim students in the university.
Justice Khanna said, “We accept the position that a minority institution, wholly funded by the state, cannot impart any religious teaching to its students. When it receives any grant, even if one per cent of its budget comes from government, the minority institution can provide religious teaching only to students volunteering for it.”
The bench also said once a minority institution gets recognition from government, it cannot insist on compulsory religious teaching to its students.
Mehta said these conditions, emerging from government grants, applied equally to all, irrespective of whether they were minority or non-minority educational institutions.
The bench said a Rs 30 lakh reserve fund was created by Muslims to meet the pre-condition for getting statutory recognition for Aligarh Muslim University and asked whether that was not an indication of Muslims establishing AMU and a ground for conferment of minority status on the university.
Mehta said Rs 30 lakh was not wholly contributed by Muslims as there were contributions from other communities too. While stressing that the historical non-minority character codified through the AMU Act could not be changed on post-Constitution considerations, he said AMU and BHU, set up on identical lines in 1920 and 1915, used to receive Rs 1 lakh per annum grant from the British government.
“AMU at present gets Rs 1,570 crore grants in aid from the government annually. It is an institution of national importance and ranks high among eminent universities,” he added.
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