New Delhi: The Aligarh Muslim University has taken exception to the Narendra Modi Government’s decision to deny minority status to the AMU based on the Allahabad High Court judgment quashing such status.
It urged the Supreme Court not to allow the Centre to withdraw its appeal against this verdict pending for a decade. Last month the Centre filed an affidavit in the SC before a three-judge Bench headed by Justice J.S. Khehar seeking permission to withdrawal the appeal stating that the AMU being a Central University cannot be granted minority status.
The Centre in its affidavit made it clear that since AMU was set up by a Parliamentary enactment, any such special privilege on religious grounds would be contrary to its secular policy.
The Centre along with the AMU had challenged a verdict of the Allahabad HC holding that the university cannot have a minority status as the Supreme Court judgment in 1967 in the Azeez Basha case rejecting conferment of minority status had attained finality.
The Centre has also taken the stand that conferring minority status to AMU or any institution set up by a Parliamentary enactment or State enactment would be contrary to Article 15.
In its response the AMU said that the Centre cannot be permitted to withdraw its appeal on this ground. It is well-settled by this Court that a decision taken at the governmental level will not be nullified by a change of government by another political party assuming power particularly when such a decision affects the interest of the nation as a whole.
