Supreme Court urged to relook order on posting of teachers in minority-run institutions

State can regulate appointments in minority-run institutions, the court had ruled

The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice on a plea for a re-examination of its January 6, 2020 judgment declaring that the State is well within its rights to regulate the appointment of teachers to minority-run institutions in “national interest.”

Appearing before a three-judge Bench led by Chief Justice of India Sharad A. Bobde, senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan, representing the Managing Committee, Contai High Madrasah, said the judgment “dismantles” the law laid down by an 11-judge Bench of the Supreme Court in the T.M.A. Pai case of 2002.

The 2002 judgment had held that minorities have a fundamental right under Article 30 of the Constitution to administer their institutions and appoint teachers.

The January 6 judgment by a two-judge Bench led by Justice Arun Mishra had given the State an absolute right to impose regulations on minority established and administered institutions in the appointment of teachers, saying the step was necessary to achieve excellence in education in these institutions.

Contai said the two-judge Bench has even contradicted a Supreme Court judgment as recent as September 25, 2019 which upheld the rights of the minority communities to establish and run their own institutions without government interference in day-to-day affairs of management like the appointment of teachers. The September 25 judgment of the Supreme Court in Chandana Das (Malakar) versus State of West Bengal was pronounced by a three-judge Bench led by Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman.

The petitioner said the Constitution Bench in the T.M.A Pai case was clear that “regulatory measures of control should be very minimal” and “in matters of day-to-day management like appointment of staff, teaching and non-teaching, and administrative control over them, the management should have the freedom and there should not be any external controlling agency.”

The petition said the judgment segregates a particular community from the privilege of protection under Article 30. The January 6 judgment was based on a petition challenging the validity of the West Bengal Madrasah Service Commission Act of 2008. The State Act mandated that the process of appointment of teachers in aided madrasahs, recognised as minority institutions, would be done by a Commission. The decision of the Commission would be binding. Justice Mishra’s Bench had upheld the 2008 Act.