Education safe havens not needed: Dissenting note
Even as four of the seven Constitution Bench judges paved the way for declaring the AMU a minority institution by overruling the 1967 order, the minority verdict declared that the university wasn’t a minority institution.
The majority verdict delivered by CJI DY Chandrachud (for himself, Justice Sanjiv Khanna, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra) said the AMU couldn’t be declared a non-minority institution simply because it was created by a central law.
- Editorial: SC’s divided verdict
However, the minority verdicts delivered by Justice Surya Kant, Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice SC Sharma ruled that a two-judge Bench in 2019 could not have directly referred the matter to a seven-judge Bench.
While Justice Datta declared that the AMU was not a minority institution under Article 30, Justice Sharma said the minorities didn’t need a “safe haven” to pursue education.
Justice Datta highlighted the lack of a consultative decision-making process. “A common venue for a purposeful and effective dialogue where members of the Bench could freely express their points of view, an attempt to share thoughts and to exchange opinions, a ‘give’ and ‘take’ of ideas, in true democratic spirit to build up a consensus — all these seem to have taken a backseat, having regard to the immense pressure of work which we, the CJI and the other judges on the Bench have undertaken during the time ever since the judgment was reserved,” Justice Datta wrote.
“To assume that the minorities of the country require some ‘safe haven’ for attaining education and knowledge is wholly incorrect,” Justice Sharma said, adding the purpose of Article 30 was not to create “minority only” ghettos.
