The Hindu : Minorities have no absolute rights: Centre

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 17, 2002

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Minorities have no absolute rights: Centre

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI July 16. The minorities have no absolute rights under the Constitution to establish and administer educational institutions as such a right was subject to ``reasonable restrictions'', the Solicitor-General, Harish Salve, today submitted before a 11-Judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court examining 11 questions relating to the rights of minorities.

Continuing his arguments during the resumed hearing of the case before the Bench headed by the Chief Justice, B.N. Kirpal, Mr. Salve differed with the petitioners' contention that minorities had absolute rights to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice, which included professional colleges also.

The Bench included Justices G.B. Pattanaik, V.N. Khare, S. Rajendra Babu, S.S.M. Quadri, Ruma Pal, S.N. Variava, K.G. Balakrishnan, P. Venkatarama Reddy, Ashok Bhan and Arijit Pasayat.

From April 2, the Bench has been examining important questions of law relating to ``minorities'' and ``religion'' raised in over 200 petitions, to have a re-look over these expressions and had framed 11 questions for determination.

The Solicitor-General today reiterated that the right to impart education was subject to ``reasonable restrictions''. He said the earlier Constitution Benches had correctly interpreted the issues and the problem was only in the application of principles.

He said it was only when the reasonable restrictions went to the extent of denuding the right under Article 30, that they would be unreasonable. He said that under the Constitutional scheme of things, there was no absolute right as no Constitutional system had accepted such rights.

When the Bench pointed out to him that if Article 30 was read in isolation, textually there was no restriction regarding establishment of educational institutions and administering it, Mr. Salve said Articles 29 and 30 could not be read into in isolation as these Articles had to be read in consonance with Articles 14, 19, 25, 26 and 28.

He said secular laws meant to achieve secular objectives would be applicable to educational institutions established and administered by minorities also. Only if such laws completely deprived them of their rights, the Government could not interfere in the functioning of the colleges run by the minorities.

Drawing a parallel between an institution wholly run by the minorities and the one run with Government aid, Mr. Salve said that if the institution was wholly funded by the State, then the minorities lose their right to administer the same, notwithstanding the rights conferred under Article 30.

The questions re-framed by the Bench include: what is the meaning and content of the expressions ``minorities'' and ``religion'' under Article 30 and 30 (1); can the followers of a sect or denomination of a particular religion claim protection on the basis that they constitute a minority in the State though the followers of that religion are in majority in that State; whether admission of students to a minority educational institution, aided or unaided, can be regulated by the State Government or by the University; whether minority institutions' right of admission of students and to lay down procedure and method of admission, if any, would be affected in any way by the receipt of State aid; whether statutory provisions to regulate the various facets of administration would amount to interference with the right of administration of minorities and whether the member of a linguistic non-minority in one State can establish a trust/society in another State and claim minority status in that State.

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