SC verdict on pleas against HC order scrapping UP madrasa law today
New Delhi: The Supreme Court is likely to pronounce on November 5 its verdict on pleas challenging the Allahabad High Court judgment that declared the Uttar Pradesh madrasa law as unconstitutional. A bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra on October 22 reserved the judgement on eight petitions, including the lead one filed by Anjum Kadari, against the high court verdict. On March 22, the Allahabad High Court had declared the Act as "unconstitutional" and violative of the principle of secularism, and asked the state government to accommodate madrasa students in the formal schooling system.
On April 5, the CJI-led bench had provided a breather to about 17 lakh madrasa students by staying the verdict of the High Court scrapping the Uttar Pradesh Board of Madarsa Education Act, 2004. During the hearing, the CJI had observed that secularism means to "live and let live". Moreover, regulating madrasas was in the national interest as several hundred years of the nation's composite culture could not be wished away by creating silos for minorities, he had said.
The Uttar Pradesh government, in response to a query of the bench, said it stood by the Uttar Pradesh Board of Madarsa Education Act, 2004 and was of the view that the Allahabad High Court should not have held the entire law as unconstitutional.
Agreeing to the submissions of senior lawyer Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the litigants opposed to the HC verdict, the CJI said, "Secularism means -- live and let live."
Referring to the composite national culture, the CJI had asked the state government, "Is it not in our national interest that you regulate the madrasas?" The bench further said, "You cannot wish away several hundred years of history of this nation like this. Suppose, we uphold the high court order and the parents of the children still send them to madrasas then it will just be a silos without any legislative intervention mainstreaming is the answer to ghettoisation."
