🚨 Minorty Rights vs. Universal Right to Education
The Supreme Court has once again reopened the debate on the delicate balance between minority rights and the universal right to education.
In Anjuman Ishaat e Taleem Trust v. State of Maharashtra (2025), a two-judge Bench referred to a larger Bench the question of whether minority schools can be fully exempt from the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (RTE Act). This revisits the Constitution Bench ruling in Pramati Educational and Cultural Trust v. Union of India (2014), which had excluded minority institutions from the RTE framework.
The Court observed that by exempting minority institutions, children studying in them are denied essential safeguards under Article 21A such as qualified teachers, pupil-teacher ratios, and bans on corporal punishment. It stressed that Article 21A (right to education) and Article 30(1) (minority rights) must co-exist harmoniously, rather than one overriding the other.
This judgment echoes earlier concerns raised in Society for Unaided Private Schools of Rajasthan v. Union of India (2012), where unaided minority schools were first exempted from the 25% quota under Section 12(1)(c) of the RTE Act. The 2014 Pramati ruling then extended this exemption to all minority institutions, aided or unaided.
The present ruling rightly highlights that many institutions claiming minority status function as elite schools, admitting few disadvantaged students while avoiding RTE obligations. As scholars like R. Govinda and Latika Gupta have pointed out, the RTE Act is child-centric, not institution-centric its spirit lies in protecting children’s rights, not institutional privileges.
The Supreme Court’s move to reconsider Pramati marks a step towards reaffirming that every child, irrespective of where they study, deserves equal access to quality education.