The Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench) pronounced the ‘UP Board of Madarsa Education Act 2004’ as unconstitutional, and infringing the fundamental principles of secularism.
While holding the legislation to be ultra vires, the Division, led by Justice Vivek Chaudhary and Justice Subhash Vidyarthi, also instructed the Uttar Pradesh government to devise a plan to accommodate students currently enrolled in madrasas in the formal education system.
This verdict comes months after the state administration resolved to inspect the state’s Islamic education establishments, and it also constituted a SIT in October 2023 to investigate madrassas’ money from abroad.
The High Court’s decision came in response to a writ petition filed by Anshuman Singh Rathore challenging the authority of the UP Madarsa Board, as well as objecting to Madarsa’s management by the Minority Welfare Department.
During prior proceedings, the High Court had questioned both the Union of India and the State government about the rationale for operating the Madrasa Board under the purview of the Minority Department rather than the Education Department of the state.
Furthermore, the Court raised concerns about the possibility of arbitrary decision-making and emphasized the significance of transparency in educational institution management.
NCPCR’s efforts to get Madarsa students into the formal education system
It is important to note that the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has been raising its voice to enroll students learning in Madarsa into the formal education system. Recently, on 14th March, it sought an inquiry into the ‘open schools’ established by the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, an Islamic organization with the support of the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS). The NCPCR stated that the Islamic organization was committing an organized crime by keeping the minor children studying in Madarsa away from formal education by allegedly providing them Islamic education under the guise of ‘open schools’.
It has previously requested all the Indian states and UTs to investigate all government-funded and recognized madrasas that admit non-Muslim youngsters. The NCPCR had also requested that the investigation include physical verification of the youngsters before admitting them to schools.
On 5th January 2024, it summoned the chief secretaries (CS) of 11 states and union territories (UTs) for the delay in complying with its directive to identify non-Muslim children, including Hindu children, studying in madrasas so that they could be admitted to schools. The summons had been issued to the CS of Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Telangana, Jharkhand, Kerala, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Meghalaya, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
The central body states that Article 28(3) of the Constitution prohibits educational institutions from obligating children to participate in religious teaching without parental assent. It stated that madrasas, as institutions, are primarily responsible for providing religious education to children and that it has been learned that those madrasas funded or recognized by the government provide religious education and very little formal education to children.
