Judgment

WANCHOO, CJI. - These five writ petitions raise common questions and will be dealt with together. They attack the constitutionality of the Aligarh Muslim University (Amendment) Act, No. LXII of 1851 (hereinafter referred to as the 1951-Act) and the Aligarh Muslim University (Amendment) Act, No. XIX of 1965 (hereinafter referred to as the 1965-Act). The principal attack is based on the provisions of Article 30 (1) which lays down that "all minorities, whether based on religion or language, shall have the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice". The case of all the petitioners is that the Aligarh Muslim University (hereinafter referred to as the Aligarh University) was established by the Muslim minority and therefore the Muslim had the right to administer it and in so far as the Acts of 1951 and 1965 take away or abridge any part of that right they are ultra vires Article 30 1. Besides this principal attack, the two Acts are also subsidiarily attacked for violating the fundamental rights guaranteed under Articles 14, 19, 23, 26, 29 and 31 of the Constitution. It is unnecessary to set out the nature of the attack under these Articles for that will appear when we deal with the matter in detail later; suffice it to say that all the petitions do not make the attack under all these Articles, but the sum total of the subsidiary attack in all these petitions takes in its sweep all these six Articles.

2. The petitions have been opposed on behalf of the onion of India and its main contention is that the Aligarh University was established in 1920 by the Aligarh Muslim University Act, No. XL of 1920 (hereinafter referred to as the 1920-Act) and that this establishment was not by the Muslim minority but by that Government of India by virtue of a statute namely the 1920-Act and therefore the Muslim minority could not claim any fundamental right to administer the Aligarh University under Article 30 (1). It was further contended that as the Aligarh University was established by the 1920-Act by the Government of India, Parliament had the right to amend that statute as it thought fit in the interest of education and the amendments made by the Acts of 1951 and 1965 were perfectly valid as there was no question of their taking away the right of the Muslim minority to administer the Aligarh University for the minority not having established the university could not claim the right to administer it. It was further contended that the fact that under the provisions of the 1920-Act, the Court of the Aligarh University was to be composed entirely of Muslims did not give any right to the Muslim community as such to administer the university which had been administered by the authorities established by the 1920. Act. It was further contended that the attack based on the six Articles of the Constitution to which we have referred already had no substance and did not in any manner make the Acts of 1951 and 1965 unconstitutional. We do not think it necessary at this stage to give in detail the reply of the Government of India on these points and shall refer to it as and when the occasion arises.

3. It is necessary to refer to the history previous to the establishment of the Aligarh University in 1920 in order to understand the contentions raised on either side. It appears that as far back as 1870 Sir Syed Ahmad Khan thought that the backwardness of the Muslim community was due to their neglect of modern education. He therefore conceived the idea of imparting liberal education to Muslims in literature and science while at the same time instruction was to be given in Muslim religion and traditions also. With this object in mind, he organised a Committee to devise ways and means for educational regeneration of Muslims and in May 1872 a society called the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College Fund Committee was started for collecting subscriptions to realise the goal that Sir Syed Ahmad Khan had conceived. In consequence of t