The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court on Friday declared the Uttar Pradesh Board of Madarsa Education Act, 2004, as ‘unconstitutional’ and directed the state government to accommodate students studying in Madarsas in other schools.
A division bench of justice Vivek Chaudhary and justice Subhash Vidyarthi passed the order on a petition filed by one Anshuman Singh Rathore challenging the constitutional validity of the Act and certain provisions of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Amendment) Act, 2012. The ruling comes months after the state government decided to survey the Islamic education institutions in the state and also formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) in October 2023 to probe the funding of Madarsas from abroad.
The investigation report recommended action against more than 8,000 madarsas. According to the SIT report, around 80 madarsas in border regions had received foreign funding totalling around ₹100 crores. In December last year, a division bench raised concerns about potential instances of arbitrary decision-making and the need for transparency in the administration of such educational institutions.
During previous hearings, the high court had raised inquiries directed at both the Union of India and the state government regarding the rationale behind operating the Madarsa Board under the purview of the ninority department instead of the education department of the state.
The Act provides the madarsas to function under the state minority welfare ministry. Hence, a question arises as to whether it is arbitrary for providing the madarsa education to be run under the minority welfare department while all the other education institutions including those belonging to other minority communities like Jains, Sikhs, Christians etc, are run under the education ministry.
Courtesy Hindustan Times
