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Minority tag for Delhi’s four Sikh colleges
Tribune News Service

Minority status means n The colleges need not implement government quotas n The managements get the power to appoint teaching staff, raise fee structure

New Delhi, July 19
In a significant development, 60-year-old Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur (SGTB) Khalsa College, a constituent college of Delhi University, was today declared a minority educational institution.

Besides SGTB Khalsa College, three other colleges of Delhi University, namely Guru Nanak Dev Khalsa College, Devnagar; Sri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce, Pitampura; and Mata Sundri College for Women, being administered by the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC), were also recognised as minority institutions by the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions. These four are the only colleges to get minority tag after St Stephen’s and Jesus and Mary colleges affiliated to Delhi University.

The development allows a series of constitutional protections to the above-mentioned four minority colleges, which are now covered under Article 30 (1) of the Constitution. This Article gives religious and linguistic minorities the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice without having to implement the government’s quota policy applicable to central-educational institutions like Delhi University.

Now, the four colleges need not implement the mandatory government reservation, which other affiliates of DU are supposed to do - be it 27 per cent OBC quota, 15 per cent SC quota or 7.5 per cent ST quota.

The only reservation minority colleges are expected to have is quota for the minority they were set up to cater to (Sikhs in this case) to the extent of 50 per cent.

Besides, the managements of minority colleges have the power to appoint the teaching staff and raise the fee structure as they want.

Ruling on the DSGMC’s 2008 petition, seeking minority status for the four colleges it runs, the full Bench of the commission today said there was sufficient evidence to prove that the three grounds needed for the grant of minority status - the institutions in question should have been established by the minority community in question (Sikhs here), should be administered by the minority (DSGMC here) and should work for the welfare of minorities.

Teachers of SGTB Khalsa College and the Registrar, Delhi University, however, consistently opposed the petition of the DSGMC. Main respondent Prof NS Kapur, who retired from Khalsa College after 38 years of service, said he would challenge the commission’s judgment in the high court.