Blitz Bureau
THE Supreme Court has set aside the Allahabad High Court’s March judgment that declared the 2004 Uttar Pradesh Board of Madarsa Education Act unconstitutional.
A Bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra on November 5 underlined the Uttar Pradesh Government’s vital role in ensuring that educational standards in madrasas align with modern academic expectations, asking the state to relocate students to other schools.
The Supreme Court also declared that madrasas can’t grant degrees of higher education since that’s violative of the University Grants Commission Act.
“We have upheld the validity of the UP madrassa law and moreover, a statute can be struck down only if the state lacks the legislative competence,” the CJI said while pronouncing the verdict, according to Hindustan Times.
“Legislative scheme of the UP Board of Madarsa Education Act was to standardise the level of education being prescribed in madrasas,” the Supreme Court said. The Bench, on October 22, had reserved the judgment on eight petitions, including the lead one filed by Anjum Kadari, against the high court verdict.
On March 22, the Allahabad high court had declared the Act as “unconstitutional” and violative of the principle of secularism, and asked the Uttar Pradesh Government to accommodate madrasa students in the formal schooling system.
On April 5, the CJI-led bench had provided a breather to about 17 lakh madrasa students by staying the verdict of the high court scrapping the Uttar Pradesh Board of Madarsa Education Act, 2004. During the hearing, the CJI had observed that secularism means to “live and let live”. Moreover, regulating madrasas was in the national interest as several hundred years of the nation’s composite culture could not be wished away by creating silos for minorities, DY Chandrachud had said.
The Uttar Pradesh government, in response to a query of the Bench, said it stood by the Uttar Pradesh Board of Madarsa Education Act, 2004, and was of the view that the Allahabad High Court should not have held the entire law as unconstitutional.
Agreeing to the submissions of senior lawyer Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the litigants opposed to the high court verdict, the CJI said, “Secularism means – live and let live.
