The Hindu : National : Ordinance likely to decide on minority education status

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Saturday, Dec 31, 2005

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National

Ordinance likely to decide on minority education status

Anita Joshua

NEW DELHI: The Union Human Resource Development Ministry is planning to take the ordinance route to give the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions the power to decide on questions relating to the status of any institution as a minority educational institution and cancel recognition if the situation so warrants.

The Ministry is preparing a Cabinet note for promulgating an ordinance to this effect as the recent discourse on the Constitution Amendment to reserve seats for socially and educationally backward classes of citizens besides Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in private unaided educational institutions other than those run by minorities prised open the question on ``who is a minority''; particularly in States such as Kerala. Add to this the issue of linguistic minorities.

Protesting exemption of minority institutions from the ambit of the Constitution Amendment, many political parties had sought a clear definition of the term minority since it applies to both religious and linguistic minorities. Responding to the discussion in Parliament, Union HRD Minister Arjun Singh had said appropriate remedial measures would be taken if necessary.

Though The National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions (Amendment) Bill — empowering the Commission with the power to draw up the parameters of who constitutes a minority and making several other amendments — was tabled in the Rajya Sabha in the monsoon session and the Cabinet had on December 15 cleared a fresh amendment proposed by the Parliamentary Standing Committee, inability to get it passed in the winter session has made the Ministry consider the ordinance route.

The Bill seeks to plug the loopholes that have hindered the functioning of the Commission set up in 2004 soon after the United Progressive Alliance Government came into office. Primarily, it proposes to relax the existing provision as per which minority educational institutions could seek affiliation to any of the listed six Scheduled Universities — Delhi University, North-Eastern Hill University, Pondicherry University, Assam University, Nagaland University and Mizoram University — only. The Bill allows them to seek affiliation to any university of their choice subject to the rules of the concerned university.

Besides providing the right to establish a minority educational institution, the amendment has a provision as per which if a no objection certificate is not granted to an applicant within 90 days the applicant can go ahead and set up the institute. The amendment also seeks to give appellate jurisdiction to the Commission in matters regarding refusal of grant of no objection certificate for establishing a minority educational institution.

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