The Supreme Court on April 5 stayed the operation of an Allahabad High Court judgment which struck down a 20-year-old Uttar Pradesh law regulating madrasas and ordered the transfer of their students to regular schools.
A three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud decided to freeze the implementation of the High Court judgment of March 22 in an interim order even as the Uttar Pradesh government said it had learnt to “accept” the High Court verdict.
The State claimed to have fought tooth and nail for the survival of the Uttar Pradesh Board of Madrasa Education Act, 2004 in the High Court. However, it has now reconciled to the High Court’s point of view that the Act threatened the principles of secularism and was violative of the Basic Structure of the Constitution.
“How did you support a law which provides for a wide array of State entanglement with religion and religious institutions? That is the basic question,” Attorney General R. Venkataramani submitted in court.
Additional Solicitor General K.M. Nataraj, for Uttar Pradesh, said the course of instruction provided in madrasas did not involve broad-based subjects such as Maths, Science, Social Studies. “Study of secular subjects was optional,” Mr. Nataraj pointed out.
But the court countered the State’s logic, asking how the striking down of a law regulating madrasas would ensure that madrasa students were instructed in Maths, Science, Social Studies, languages and History.
“The remedy would not be to strike down the Madrasa Board Act, but to issue suitable directions to enable students pursuing their education in madrasas to access the quality of education made available by the State in other institutions,” Chief Justice Chandrachud dictated in the order for the Bench.
‘Legitimate public interest’
The court said if the State had a “legitimate public interest” in all students, including those in madrasas, it ought to ensure that “they receive education of a requisite quality and standard which make them qualified to pursue a dignified existence”.
Issuing notice to the State of Uttar Pradesh, the court said it would hear detailed arguments in the second week of July on whether it was necessary to jettison the entire statute.
The court said it was left to the choice of students and their parents to stay back or leave madrasas to join mainstream schools. However, it was unwarranted on the part of the High Court to direct their transfer to “regular” schools.
Mr. Nataraj, for Uttar Pradesh, tried to reason that the madrasas had not been shut down after all. Only the students have been directed to be re-allocated. He argued that Article 28(1) of the Constitution prohibited religious instruction in educational institutions wholly maintained out of State funds.
Appearing for an association of madrasa teachers which challenged the High Court judgment, senior advocates A.M. Singhvi, Salman Khurshid and Maneka Guruswamy, said the verdict affected the lives of nearly 17 lakh students spread across 16,000 madrasas in Uttar Pradesh.
They said that unlike what the State claimed, only 560 of the 16,000 madrasas were recognised by State funds. The petitioners argued that imparting religious instruction in secular institutions was not proscribed in the Constitution. Besides, subjects other than Islamic theology are taught in madrasas, the petitioners submitted. They said without the Board, madrasa education would continue unregulated.
In his order, the Chief Justice said the High Court seemed to have “conflated the concept of madrasa education with the regulatory powers attached to the Board”. The reasoning was prima facie misconceived.
