VENKATARAMANA SWAMY VIDYAVARDHAKA SANGHA Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The captioned writ petition is filed seeking following reliefs:

(2.) The petitioner-Society claims that it is running several educational institutions which are declared to be Linguistic Minority Institution. The petitioner-Society claims that the members of the Society are of Konkani speaking population. Therefore, Society claims that it has been declared to be the minority institution vide Government letter dated 15/16/2/1994. The grievance of the Society before this Court is that respondent No.1 vide impugned endorsement dtd. 25/1/2018 as per Annexure-N placing reliance on the Notification dtd. 18/6/2014 issued by respondent No.1 has withdrawn the declaration granted in favour of the Society on the ground that the petitioner-Society does not have the strength of more than 25% of students having Konkani as the mother tongue in the institution. Therefore, petitioner-Society has knocked the doors of the Court questioning the Government Notification prescribing minimum percentage of linguistic students to retain the character of minority status. The impugned notification vide Annexure-L and consequent endorsement vide Annexure-N are challenged by the petitioner on the ground that the petitionerSociety is declared to be a minority institution way back in 1994 and therefore, the present petitioner-Society cannot be called upon to adhere to the requisite number of students from linguistic community in terms of fresh notification issued by the respondent No.1 vide Annexure-L. The petitionerSociety has also questioned the impugned notification vide Annexure-L on the ground that Sec. 141 of Karnataka Education Act, 1983 (for short 'the Act') clearly contemplates that nothing in the Act or the Rules made under this Act shall apply to any Minority Educational Institution to the extent which is found to be inconsistent with the rights guaranteed under Article 30(1) of the Constitution of India. The plaintiff also claims that as per Article 30(1) of the Constitution, all the minority institutions whether based on religion or language shall have absolute right to establish and administer educational institution of their choice. On these set of grounds, the impugned notification vide Annexure-L and consequent endorsement as per Annexure-N withdrawing the status is called in question.

(3.) The respondent No.1/State has filed statement of objections in connected writ petition bearing W.P.No.2702/2014. The State has not filed statement of objections in the present captioned petition.