In what will mean a reversal of its status, the Jamia Millia Islamia university will no longer hold its position as a minority institution as the Centre has decided to withdraw its earlier stand, as per an Indian Express report.
The Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry is set to file an affidavit stating that the decision in 2011 to categorise Jamia as a religious minority institution was a mistake, as the institute had been set up by an of Act of Parliament, and was centrally funded.
The HRD ministry, in its affidavit, will state that it had bypassed the law in reinforcing the February 2011 order by the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions (NCMEI), categorising Jamia as a religious minority institution.
Former Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi had informed the then Smriti Irani-led HRD ministry in January 2016 that it could reverse its stance on Jamia’s minority status in court.
As a precedent, the government will be referring to the Supreme Court’s judgment in the Azeez Basha case, in which it had rule that the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) cannot be called a minority institution, having been set up by British legislature.
Earlier, the NDA government had claimed that an institution cannot have the dual status of being both a minority institution and a central university.
According to the 2011 NCMEI order, Jamia had stopped reserving seats for SC/ ST and OBC students, and had reserved 50 percent of the seats in each programme for Muslim students, as per an Indian Express report.
Student Body Condemns ‘Centre’s Retraction’
In response to the Centre’s withdrawal of its 2011 decision, Nahas Mala, president of Students Islamic Organisation (SIO) of India, said, as per an NDTV report, that the controversy surrounding Jamia, is “ill founded” and “wrongly taken”. In a statement, the NCMEI has allegedly told the SIO, as per an NDTV report, that it has arbitrated and held that:
Jamia was founded by Muslims for the benefit of Muslims and it never lost its identity as a Muslim minority educational institution.
Therefore, as per the NCMEI’s statement, Jamia was “covered under Article 30(1)... read with Section 2(g) of the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions Act”. Consequently, the SIO insisted that the community’s rights to “establish” and “administer” educational institutions of its choice under Article 30 of the Constitution be met.
A statement from the SIO, as quoted by NDTV, said:
The retraction of central government from its earlier stand on the Minority status of JMI amounts to the denial of historical facts. It went further to make similar remarks regarding the character of JMI tantamount to denying its minority status.
(With inputs from Indian Express and NDTV)
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