The main legal point established in the judgment is that R.6, 7 and 8 of the Kerala Education Rules are void to the extent they contravene the fundamental right of the minority to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice under Art.30 of the Constitution.

This petition, field on behalf of two aided schools, the C. N. I. Training School for Men and Women, Kottayam, and the B. I. Training School for Women, Pallom, Kottayam, is for the issue of an appropriate writ or direction restraining the respondent from enforcing R.6,7 and 8 of Chapter XXV of the Kerala Education Rules as against these schools. Both the schools are owned by the Diocese of Madhya Kerala, and the petitioner represents the same. The Madhya Kerala Diocese is part of the Church of South India. The Church represents a denomination among Christians, and on the basis of the averment in the affidavit in support of the petition, I think that the denomination is a 'minority' within the meaning of Art.30.

2. In A. M. Patron v. E. G. Kesavan AIR. 1965 Kerala 75, at 76 this court said:

"The word 'minority' is not defined in the Constitution; and in the absence of any special definition we must hold that any community, religious or linguistic, which is numerically less than fifty per cent, of the population of the State is entitled to the fundamental right guaranteed by the Article.

The Christians, at the 1961 census amounted only to 21.22 per cent of the population of the State "

3. The Doicese has been establishing and administering educational institutions of their own choice and the schools in question are two such institutions.

4. R.6, 7 and 8 in Chapter XXV of the Kerala Education Rules, 1959 (hereinafter referred to as the Rules,) are as follows:

"6. Twenty per cent of the seats in Aided Training Schools shall be reserved for selection by the Managers of the respective Training Schools.

7. Selection of candidates for sixty per cent of the seats in aided Training Schools and for eighty per cent of the seats in Government Training Schools shall be made by a Selection Committee consisting of a member of the Public Service Commission as Chairman and an Official nominee of the Education Department. There shall be a Selection Committee for each Revenue District.

8. In the remaining twenty per cent of seats, the Director shall depute untrained teachers employed in Government and Private Schools for teachers training in Government and Aided Training Schools".

It is clear from the rules that only 20% of the seats will be reserved for selection by managers and that 80% of the seats will be reserved for selection by a committee consisting of a member of the Public Service Commission as Chairman and an official nominee of the Education Department of the State; and by the Director of Public Instruction, Kerala.

5. The petitioner says, that the two training schools were established by the Diocese primarily for the training of teachers to be appointed in the various schools run by the Diocese, and that the restrictions imposed by the rubs in the matter of admission of students of their choice violate the fundamental right guaranteed to the minority under Art.30 of the Constitution.

6. In Sidharajbhai v. State of Gujarat AIR. 1963 SC. 540 the Supreme Court said:

"The right established by Art.30 (1) is a fundamental right declared in terms absolute. Unlike the fundamental freedoms guaranteed by Art.19 it is not subject to reasonable restrictions. It is intended to be a real right for the protection of the minorities in the matter of setting up of educational institutions of their own choice. The right is intended to be effective and is not to be whittled down by so called regulative measures conceived in the interest not of the minority educational institution, but of the public or the nation as a whole. If every order which while maintaining the formal character of a minority institution destroys the power of administration is held justiciable because it is in the public or national interest, though not in its interest as an educational institution the right guaranteed by Art.30 (1) will be but a "teasing illusion", a promise of unreality. Regulations which may lawfully be imposed either by legislative or executive action as a condi