The Supreme Court on Friday stayed the Allahabad high court order that declared the Uttar Pradesh Board of Madarsa Education Act, 2004, unconstitutional and violative of secularism. A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud issued notice to Centre, and the Uttar Pradesh government on the plea challenging the high court order.
"The object and purpose of Madrasa board is regulatory in nature and the Allahabad high court is not prima facie correct that establishment of board will breach secularism," the bench, also comprising Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, said.
The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court on March 22 directed the state government to accommodate students studying in madrasas in regular schools. The high court had declared the law ultra vires on a writ petition filed by Anshuman Singh Rathore, a practising lawyer, challenging the constitutional validity of the act.
A division bench of justices Vivek Chaudhary and Subhash Vidyarthi had passed the order saying the state has "no power to create a board for religious education or to establish a board for school education only for a particular religion and philosophy associated with it.”
“We hold that the Madarsa Act, 2004, is violative of the principle of secularism, which is a part of the basic structure of the Constitution of India,” added the court.
The Act was brought by the Samajwadi Party-led government in 2004.
The court pointed out that modern subjects were either absent or optional in a madrasa and a student could opt only one of the optional subjects. “Scheme and purpose of Madarsa Act is only for promoting and providing education of Islam, its prescriptions, instructions and philosophy and to spread the same,” said the court.
The order would have affected the lives of roughly 200,000 students currently enrolled in 16,500 recognised and 8,500 unrecognised madrasas or Islamic seminaries across UP, according to the state madrasa board.