Cultural and Educational Rights [Rights of Minorities] :
Minority
The word ‘minority’ has not been defined in the Constitution. The Supreme Court in D.A.V. College, Jullundur v. State of Punjab, A.I.R. 1971, S.C. 1737, seems to have stated the law on the point. It said that minority should be determined in relation to a particular impugned legislation. The determination of minority should be based on the area of operation of a particular piece of legislation. If it is a State law, the population of the State should be kept in mind and if it is a Central Law the population of the whole of India should be taken into account.
The two Articles guarantee the following rights:
(a) Protection of interests of Minorities
Article 29 guarantees two rights:
(i) Any section of the citizens residing in the territory of India or any part thereof having a distinct language, script or culture of its own has the right to conserve the same. Thus, citizens from Tamil Nadu or Bengal has the right to conserve their language or culture if they are living in Delhi, a Hindi speaking area and vice versa.
(ii) No citizen can be denied admission into any educational institution maintained by the State or receiving aid out of State funds on grounds only of religion, race, caste, language, or any of them. This provision is general and applies to each citizen individually and is not confined to a group of citizens. An exception is made to this right to the effect that if a special provision is made for the admission of persons belonging to educationally or/and socially backward classes or scheduled castes or scheduled tribes it shall be valid.
(b) Right of Minorities to establish and administer educational institutions
The rights guaranteed to the minorities in Article 30 are even more important than those covered by Article 29. Following rights are declared in Article 30 :
(i) All minorities, whether based on religion or on language, shall have the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice. It may be noted here that this right is not limited only to linguistic minorities but it extends to religious minorities also. Both of them have been given the freedom to establish and administer educational institutions of their own choice. So they can establish educational institution of any type and cannot be restrained from its administration. The maladministration may be checked by the State but administration cannot be entrusted to outside hands. Mal-administration defeats the very object of Article 30, which is to promote excellence of minority institutions in the field of education (All Saints High School v. Government of A.P., AIR 1980 SC 1042). And in that educational institution they may teach religion, or may give secular education, but no bar can be imposed on their choice. In the matter of medium of instruction also, the minorities are completely free to adopt any medium of their choice.
(ii) The State cannot, in granting aid to educational institutions, discriminate against any educational institution on the ground that it is under the management of a minority, whether based on religion or language. It has been held that the State cannot impose conditions in granting aid to such institutions. Further, the minority institutions are also entitled to recognition and the State cannot deny them that right, merely because they do not follow the directions of the State which impair rights under Article 30 (In re. Kerala Education Bill 1957, A.I.R. 1958 S.C. 956; Sidhrajbhai v. State of Gujarat, A.I.R. 1963 S.C. 540).
In DAV College v. State of Punjab, AIR 1971 SC 1737, it was held that any community—religious or linguistic, which is numerically less than 50 percent of the population of that State, is a minority within the meaning of Article 30. The expression minority in Article 30(1) is used as distinct from ‘Any sections of citizens’ in Article 29(1) which lends support to the view that Article 30(1) deals with national minorities or minorities recognised in the context of the entire nation (St. Xaviers College v. State of Gujarat, AIR 1974 SC 1389).
The right conferred on religious and linguistic minorities to adminster educational institutions of their choice, though couched in absolute terms, is not free from regulation. Delhi High Court in Delhi Abibhavak Mahasangh v. U.O.I. and others AIR 1999 Delhi 124 held that Article 30(1) of the Constitution does not permit, minorities to indulge in commercialisation of education in the garb of constitutional protection. For the application of this right minority institutions are divided into three classes: (i) institution which neither seek aid nor recognition from the State; (ii) institution that seek aid from the State; and (iii) institutions which seek recognition but not aid. While the institutions of class (i) cannot be subjected to any regulations except those emanating from the general law of the land such as labour, contract or tax laws, the institutions in classes (ii) and (iii) can be subjected to regulations pertaining to the academic standards and to the better administration of the institution, in the interest of that institution itself.
The Constitution (44th Amendment Act) has introduced new sub-clause (1A) which provides that wherever compulsory acquisition of any property of an educational institution established and administered by a minority is provided under any law, the State shall ensure that the amout fixed by or determined under any such law is such as would not restrict or abrogate the right guaranteed under this Article.