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Seven-judge SC bench to decide minority tag for Aligarh Muslim University
The Centre maintains that it cannot be seen as setting up a minority institution in a secular state.
A seven-judge bench will decide minority tag for Aligarh Muslim University, other institutions, the Supreme Court said today.
In July 2016, the Centre withdrew an appeal filed in the Supreme Court by the previous Congress-led UPA government that had sought to retain the minority tag for AMU.. The Centre took a stand in the Supreme Court that the Aligarh Muslim University could not be categorised as a minority institution and the government claimed that it cannot be seen as setting up a minority institution in a secular state.
In August 2016, AMU told the top court that the NDA government’ s decision to withdraw the university’s “minority status” was politically motivated and argued that a mere change of regime at the Centre cannot be the grounds for a decision affecting community members across the country.
.The Aligarh Muslim University Act was enacted in 1920 dissolving and incorporating Mohammedan-Anglo-Oriental (MAO) College. Parliament passed the AMU (Amendment) Act in 1951. The Act did away with compulsory instruction in Muslim theology. The amendment opened membership of the Court of AMU to non-Muslims.
Earlier this month, the university hit the headlines after the Mayor of Agra Naveen Jain’ asked the Aligarh administration to take stringent measures to save the AMU from becoming a ‘hub of terrorists’,.
Last year a row had erupted in the university over a portrait of Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah that had been hanging at the AMU students union hall since 1938.
The controversy began after Satish Gautam, BJP MP from Aligarh wrote to AMU vice chancellor Tariq Mansoor seeking justification for the portrait of a leader blamed by many for the partition of India.
