CHANDERWATI EDUCATIONAL AND CHARITABLE TRUST Vs. NATIONAL COMMISSION FOR MINORITY EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS AND ANR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Mr. Pallav Shisodia, learned senior counsel, who appears on behalf of the petitioner, says that he confines his relief to the grant of minority status. Learned senior counsel says that once the petitioner were to cross the impediment placed in its way by virtue of the impugned orders, only then, relief can be claimed against respondent no.2 university and that too for academic year 2020-2021.

(2.) Briefly, via the impugned order dated 30.07.2018, the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions (in short "the Commission") has rejected the application preferred by the petitioner for grant of minority status. The reason, briefly, given in the order dated 30.07.2018 is that the petitioner was established in the first instance by the members of the non-minority community and it was only thereafter that it came to be administered by the members of the Jain minority community.

(3.) In support of the reasoning, which finds expression in the impugned order, recourse has been taken by the Commission to Section 2(g)[1] of the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions Act, 2004 (in short "2004 Act") and the judgment of the Supreme Court rendered in S. Azeez Basha & Anr. v. Union of India, 1968 AIR(SC) 662. The Commission appears to be of the view that for grant of minority status, not only is the applicant institution required to be administered by a minority community but it should also be established by a minority community.