Government Order on minority institutes to admit 50 per cent minority students stayed

Justice SS Sundar before whom the plea moved by the Institute of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary came up on Tuesday granted the stay on GO (Ms) No.65, School Education Department dated 5 April, 2018.

The institute represented by sister Siryapushpam submitted that the GO implies that the minority educational institution must primarily sub-serve the interest of the minority community and cannot be a normal institution serving all sections generally.

Also, on noting that the Supreme Court order has time and again held that the minority institution gains its minority character because it is established and administered by the minority community and not because of the number of minority students admitted therein, she submitted that the GO under the pretext of promoting the interest of the minority community, is attempting to deprive minority status and in turn deprive the constitutional protection to the minority institutions based on the narrow and hyper-technical interpretation.

In the absence of any complaint from the minority community that Christian students have been denied admission in a minority institution, there is no basis for the impugned GO. There cannot be a common rule throughout the State to admit a minimum of 50 per cent minority students in Tamil Nadu, as condition precedent for minority status, while the Christian population is only 6.1 per cent in the demography of the state, the plea added.