Minority edu inst not bound to give undertaking for quota: SC

The Supreme Court has ruled that linguistic minority educationalinstitutions are not bound to give an undertaking to give reservation toScheduled Castes(SCs) and Scheduled Tribes(STs) in jobs for gettinggovernment grant-in-aid. A bench comprising Justices B S Chouhan andSwatanter Kumar, while allowing the appeal of Sindhi Education Societyrunning a senior secondary school in Lajpat Nagar area of New Delhi, ruledthat Rule 64(1)(b) of Delhi School Education Rules, 1973 and the circular ofDelhi government of September 1989 are not enforceable against thelinguistic minority school in the National Capital Territory(NCT) of Delhi.
Justice Kumar writing 109-page judgement strongly disapproved theobservation of the Delhi High Court that minority institution can not beforced to appoint a teaching faculty who may be inimical towards theminority community. The apex court noted, ''The Preamble of Our Constitutionrequires the people of India to constitute into a 'Soverign, socialist,secular democratic republic'. Secularism, therefore, is the essence of ourdemocratic system. Secularism and brotherhoodness is a golden thread thatruns into the entire constitutional scheme formulated by the framers of theconstitution.
The view of the learned single judge and the division bench in the case ofSumanjit Kaur runs contra to the enunciated law. We are afraid that whiledeciding a constitutional matter in accordance with law, the court would notbe competent to raise a presumption of inimical attitude of and towards onecommunity or the other. We do not approve the view of the High Court that aprovision of an Act or a circular issued thereunder could be declared asunconstitutional on such presumptuous ground.'' The apex court concluded byholding, ''Every linguistic minority may have its own socio, economic andcultural limitations.
It has a constitutional right to conserve such culture and language. Thus itwould have a right to choose teachers, who possess the eligibility andqualifications as provided, without really being impressed by the fact oftheir religion and community. Its right to establish and administer has tobe construed liberally to bring it in alignment with the constitutionalprotections available to such communities.'' The Dehi government hadthreatened to stop grant-in-aid to the school if it fails to give anundertaking to the effect that it will provide reservation to SC/STs in thejobs in the school.