The Karnataka State Minorities Educational Institutions Managements’ Federation on Friday moved the Karnataka High Court questioning government’s circular which mandates that 25 per cent of the students admitted to a school in an academic year should belong to either linguistic or religious minority communities for such institutions to get the minority status.
In its application, the federation said the government issued a circular on June 18, 2014 in this regard by modifying an earlier circular issued on July 24, 2012, which was stayed by the High Court in November 2012.
While the earlier circular had stated that the schools should have 75 per cent of its students from the respective minority communities as one of the conditions for getting the minority status, in the new circular, this was reduced to 25 per cent.
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Contending that no reservation can be made in a minority institution, the petitioner pointed out that the apex court in its recent verdict had held that “the RTE Act does not apply to minority institutions, aided or unaided.” The petitioner also contended that the government had to set up a competent authority to give no-objection certificate for an institution to be declared as a minority institution but the State had constituted only a committee.
The application is likely to come up for hearing on Monday.
Judge recusesADVERTISEMENT
Justice L. Narayana Swamy on Friday recused himself from hearing a petition filed by Mangala Sridhar, who had questioned the Governor’s order of suspending her from the post of a member of the Karnataka Public Service Commission on the charge of alleged corruption in the selection process.
The judge heard the arguments of Advocate-General Ravivarma Kumar and others for some time. Later, on perusing the documents, he said it would not be appropriate for him to hear the petition as the documents had references to a person with whom he had some association. The petition will now be heard by another judge.