NEW DELHI: Senior advocate
Kapil Sibal
told Supreme Court on Thursday that every minority community enjoyed the constitutional guarantee to administer educational institutions established by it and said engagement of a large number of non-minority people in the administration would not alter the institution's denominational status.
Wrapping up arguments before a seven-judge bench of CJI D Y Chandrachud and Justices
Sanjiv Khanna
,
Surya Kant
,
J B Pardiwala
,
Dipankar Datta
, Manoj Misra and Satish C Sharma, Sibal said there was no doubt about Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental (MAO) College, wholly established and managed by the Muslim community, being the precursor of Aligarh Muslim University.
Once AMU was proven to have been established by Muslims, the community, in keeping with the fundamental right conferred under Article 30(1) of the Constitution, had the intrinsic right to administer it, he said.
There was no dilution of the denominational character of the institution merely because Muslims agreed to engage people from other communities in its administration, he added.
Prior to the bench reserving its verdict after eight days of arguments, Sibal said it would be impossible to have a minority educational institution in the country if the SC took the wrong adjudication path and insisted on the tests of 'establish and administer' of an institution by the minority community to make it eligible for denominational status.
"It will be a sad day if the court declares AMU to be a non-minority institution as the Muslim student participation in IITs and IIMs hovers between 1% and 2%, " he said, adding, "This is the only institution of national importance and excellence where Muslims could get reservation to alleviate the educationally backward status of the community."
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