Supreme Court overrules 1967 judgement, paves way to secure minority status for Aligarh Muslim University

In a majority ruling, a seven-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court overruled the Allahabad High Court’s decision in the S Azeez Basha vs Union of India case on how a minority character of an institution is determined, thereby paving the way for Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) to get the status.

The issue of AMU’s minority status is now left to be decided by a regular bench to determine whether it was ‘established’ by a minority. The Bench, presided by the Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud, was hearing a plea on a reference from a 2006 verdict of the Allahabad High Court which held that AMU, established through imperial legislation in 1920, was not a minority institution.

According to LiveLaw, Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud wrote the majority judgment. Justices Surya Kant, Dipankar Datta & SC Sharma dissented.

The Azeez Basha Case (1967)

As per the Basha case, the court said, “AMU was neither established nor administered by the Muslim minority”, implying that the constitutional protection granted to minority institutions under Article 30 in India doesn’t extend to the university.

In simpler terms, the university is considered ineligible for the special rights provided to minority institutions by Article 30.

In 1981, changes were made to the 1920 AMU Act, specifying that the term ‘University’ refers to an “educational institution of their choice established by the Muslims of India, which originated as the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College, Aligarh”.

The amendment clarified what ‘University’ means in the Act and empowered AMU to foster the educational and cultural progress of Indian Muslims.

As per the legislative process, after the amendments are made to any Act, it is disposed of or removed from the book of law by repealing the Amendment Act.

But that didn’t happen in the AMU Minority status case. The Amendment Act was repealed in 1988 and two sections of the 1981 Amendment Act that did not relate to minority status were left out of the 1988 repeal for “unknown reasons”.

In 2005, after the 1981 Amendment Act, the Allahabad High Court again declared that AMU is not a minority institution within Article 30 and the 1981 Amendment was declared invalid. This issue came up in the Supreme Court in 2006.

In February 2019, the Supreme Court stated that the accuracy of the Azeez Basha case remains undetermined. 

The court forwarded the matter to a seven-judge bench to determine the validity of the Azeez Basha judgement. Consequently, as of now, the AMU’s minority status is pending in the Supreme Court awaiting the broader concerns of India’s minorities.