Minority Benefits

Author(s): Babita Jain
Publisher: Shrut Samvardhan Samsthan

Page 52

Section 10A of the Act confers a right on a minority educational institution to seek affiliation to any university of its choice. Section 10A is as under:
“10A. Right of a Minority Educational Institution to seek affiliation. - (1) A Minority Educational Institution may seek affiliation to any University of its choice subject to such affiliation being permissible within the Act under which the said University is established. (2) Any person who is authorised in this behalf by the Minority
Educational Institution, may file an application for affiliation under sub-section (1) to a University in the manner prescribed by the Statute, Ordinance, rules or regulations, of the University: Provided that such authorised person shall have right to know the status of such application after the expiry of sixty days from the date of filing
of such application." Recognition is a facility, which the State grants to an educational institution. No educational institution can survive without recognition by the State Government. Without recognition the educational institutions can not avail any benefit flowing out of various beneficial schemes implemented by the Central Government. Affiliation is also a facility which a university grants to an educational institution. In Managing Board of the Milli Talimi Mission Bihar & ors. vs. State of Bihar & ors. 1984 (4) SCC 500, the Supreme Court has clearly recognized that running a minority institution is also as fundamental and important as other rights conferred on the citizens of the country. If the State Government declines to grant recognition or a university refuses to grant affiliation to a minority educational institution without just and sufficient grounds, the direct consequence would be to destroy the very existence of the institution itself. Thus, refusal to grant recognition or affiliation by the statutory authorities without just andsufficient grounds amounts to violation of the right guaranteed under Article 30(1) of the Constitution.
The right of the minorities to establish educational institutions of their choice will be without any meaning if affiliation or recognition is denied. It has been held by a Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court in St. Xavier's College, Ahmedabad vs. State of Gujarat 1974 (1) SCC 717 that "affiliation must be a real and meaningful exercise of right for minority institutions in the matter of imparting general secuiar education. Any law which provides for affiliation on terms which will involve abridgment of the right of linguistic and religious minorities to administer and establish educational institutions of their choice will offend Article 30(1): The educational institutions set up by minorities will be robbed of their utility if boys and girls cannot be trained in such institutions for university degrees. Minorities will virtually lose their right to equip their children for ordinary careers if affiliation be on terms which would make them surrender and lose their rights to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice under
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arity Benefits
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