With the competing coalitions in Maharashtra vying for every vote, the AMU controversy would undoubtedly provide the Mahayuti with more ammo.
The Supreme Court shouldn’t have rendered a dubious decision at a time when the nation is already sharply divided, thereby giving Aligarh Muslim University minority status. The final decision will be made by a bigger bench, but last Friday, in a divided 4:3 ruling, the majority opinion, written by D Y Chandrachud, the Chief Justice of India at the time, overturned the earlier ruling that had rejected AMU’s status as a minority university. In other words, an organization that receives the majority of its funding from taxpayers cannot claim to be the sole property of one particular religious group.
All Indians should be welcome, but with appropriate accommodations made for the universally accepted reserved categories of SCs, STs, and OBCs. Of course, as long as they are not supported by public funds, Muslims or any other religious minority have every right to operate institutions tailored to their community. It’s the AMU. Therefore, last Friday’s dissenting order affirmed the 1967 ruling in S. Azeez Basha v. Union of India, which was rendered by a five-judge bench. In a persuasively argued ruling, the three dissenting judges brought up a legitimate concern regarding whether a two-member bench might challenge the legitimacy of a five-member court and suggest that it be referred to a bigger seven-member bench.
Such a recommendation should ideally have been rejected by the highest court right away. Chandrachud’s majority opinion kindly accepted the opinion that Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College in Aligarh, which was established by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan in 1977, did not change its minority identity simply by becoming a university by a parliamentary act. Considering that the same statute also committed to funding the newly established organization, this was, to put it mildly, a dubious claim. AMU cannot be a minority institution, according to the 1967 Supreme Court ruling, because it is a central university and receives funding from taxpayers.
A 2-member SC panel questioned the validity of the 5-member ruling dismissing AMU’s minority status in 1981, marking the next significant development in the legal dispute over the contentious university’s status. On Friday, the dissenting judgment posed the question, “Can a two-judge bench refer the matter to a 15-member bench if it questions the ‘basic structure’ doctrine put forth by the 13-member bench in the Kesvananda Bharti case?” The legitimacy of the claim that AMU was neither “established nor administered” by Muslims was cited by the five-judge bench in the 1967 ruling.
The five-member order is unaffected by whether that is a limited interpretation of Article 30, which permits religious minority to create and manage educational institutions. Regretfully, the ruling politicians who were watching the Muslim vote bank overturned the Supreme Court’s decision and changed the AMU Act to make it a minority again.
That was back in 1981. Once more, the Allahabad High Court declared the aforementioned modification to be void in 2006 after hearing a challenge to it. The issue was appealed to the highest court, where the national government at the time upheld the change till the Narendra Modi administration took power in 2014.
A three-member bench sent the case to a seven-member bench five years later, and on CJI Chandrachud’s last day of employment, the bench eventually rendered a decision. Even if the overwhelming opinion has stated that AMU should be granted minority status, the final word on the matter is still up for debate. In order to verify the veracity of the allegation that AMU is a minority university, the 57-year-old lawsuit is currently awaiting the formation of a new, larger bench. The CJI’s order illustrates a discrepancy between what ought to be and what really exists.
Accordingly, the following statement is made: “The court may determine whether the minority character or the purpose of establishment was relinquished upon incorporation by taking a comprehensive view of the statutory provisions pertaining to the administrative structure of the educational institutions.”
Such self-doubts, however, do not challenge the minority judgment. As a central university, it must operate in accordance with the AMU Act and the provisions of other pertinent laws, it was decided. Additionally, because AMU is a government institution, admissions should be granted on the basis of merit, and reservations for SC, ST, OBC, and EWS groups must be made. “To assume that the minorities of the country require some’safe haven’ for attaining education and knowledge is wholly incorrect,” the minority ruling stated in a key line. Not only have the nation’s minorities assimilated into the mainstream, but they now play a significant role in it.
Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, weighed in on the situation a day after the Supreme Court’s ambiguous ruling in the AMU case, praising the minority opinion as the accurate legal interpretation. In an attempt to incite casteist fervor, he spoke at a rally in favor of the BJP candidate in one of the nine Assembly by-elections taking place in the Aligarh area. He questioned why the SCs, STs, and OBCs had been excluded from the central university’s quota benefits for such a long time.
The AMU issue will undoubtedly provide the ruling Mahayuti with more justification to attack the pseudo-secularists of the MVA who want the Muslim vote without providing them with tickets according to their population or to oppose the Waqf law changes that the Modi government is considering, especially considering how the rival alliances in Maharashtra are vying for every vote. Secularists are given a free pass to power when they take advantage of Muslims’ fear and insecurity without granting them a fair share of authority.
Dr. Abhishek Verma
Author: This news is edited by: Abhishek Verma, (Editor, CANON TIMES)
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