Author: J. Venkatesan
Publication: The Hindu
Date: May 2, 2002
The minorities have no absolute
right under the Constitution to establish and administer educational institutions
as such a right was subject to "reasonable restrictions'', the Solicitor-General,
Harish Salve, today submitted before a 11-Judge Constitution Bench of the
Supreme Court hearing 11 questions relating to the rights of the minorities.
Beginning his arguments at the conclusion
of elaborate arguments (which began on April 2) by counsel for the petitioner
institutions, Mr. Salve differed with the petitioners' contention that
the minorities had absolute rights to establish and administer educational
institutions, including professional colleges.
The right to impart education was
subject to "reasonable restrictions'' and the earlier Constitution Benches
had correctly interpreted the issues and the problem was only in applying
the principles.
Only when the reasonable restrictions
denuded the right under Article 30 that they would be unreasonable, Mr.
Salve said. He would continue his submissions.
Arguing for some of the minority
institutions, senior counsel, K. Parasarann, had submitted that the fundamental
right guaranteed under Article 29 (1) conferred an absolute right on the
linguistic and religious minorities. If they established and administered
educational institutions, be it aided or unaided, they were entitled to
admitting students of a particular minority to the maximum extent possible.
Senior counsel Rama Jois submitted
that the non-minorities had the right to establish and administer educational
institution under Articles 21 and 29 (1) (protection of the interests of
the minorities) read with Articles 14 (equality before law) and 15 (1)
(prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex
or place of birth) in the same manner and to the same extent as the minority
institution. He argued that there should be no discrimination between the
minorities and the non-minorities in imparting education.
Earlier on Tuesday, senior counsel
K. Subramanian, appearing for the Tamil Nadu Minority Private Educational
Institutions Protective Council and others, furnished statistics to show
that for a population of over 102 crores, India had only 100 government-run
medical and 186 engineering colleges.
As against this, there were 52 private
medical and 556 engineering colleges, he said and added that this would
show that in India "we have on an average one government medical college
for a population of 1.20 crores and one government engineering college
for a population of about 54.60 lakhs''. When the Government was not in
a position to cater to the educational needs of the society, if the minorities
were also restrained from establishing professional colleges, such an approach
would be detrimental to public interest.
