Minority schools to enjoy status, won't need state commission certificates: Calcutta HC

KOLKATA: A school once listed as a minority institution would continue to enjoy that status, whether or not it obtained a

minority certificate

from

West Bengal Minorities Commission

, a division bench of Calcutta high court ruled on Thursday.
"Once a minority, always a minority," Chief Justice T S Sivagnanam said, as the bench dismissed a public interest litigation filed in 2019, which pleaded that schools run by

West Bengal Association of Christian Schools

could not claim minority status because the association had not applied to the commission for renewal of minority status.
The CJ observed that the petitioner was evidently unaware of the Supreme Court judgments with regard to interpretations of Article 30(1) of the Constitution. He cited a 1988 SC judgment, which ruled that "a school which is otherwise a minority school would continue to be so. The declaration (by the state) is only an acceptance of a legal character antecedent to the said declaration."
"The settled legal position is that you can't insist on a listed minority body to go to govt and apply for a minority certificate," CJ Sivagnanam said.

The HC noted that Rule 33 of Management Rules-1969, which provides that such schools may apply for a certificate, was omitted in 2008, and observed: "The omission of Rule 33 will not in any manner affect the right of the West Bengal Association of Christian Schools. State govt made special rules for the minority-run private institutions conferred to them under Article(s) 26 and 30 of the Constitution."
The respondent schools pleaded that the Christian schools had been set up and administered since 1800, and were listed as minority institutions years before West Bengal Minorities Commission came into being.
The bench, also comprising Justice Chaitali Chatterjee (Das), expressed "serious doubt" about the bona fides of the petitioner, a social worker engaged in imparting education to the poor and downtrodden in rural areas.