Judgment :-

V.N. Khare, CJI for himself and for Variava, Balakrishnan and Pasayat, JJ.

On 31st October, 2002 eleven Judge Bench of this Court delivered the Judgment in the case of T.M.A. Pai Foundation and others vs. State of Karnataka and others (2002(8) SCC 481). A brief history as to how a eleven Judge Bench of this Court came to decide this case is set out in para 3 of the judgment, which reads as under:

"3. The hearing of these cases has had a chequered history. Writ Petition No. 350 of 1993 filed by the Islamic Academy of Education and connected petitions were placed before a Bench of five Judges. As the Bench was prima facie of the opinion that Article 30 did not clothe a minority educational institution with the power to adopt its own method of selection and the correctness of the decision of this Court is St. Stephens College vs. University of Delhi was doubted, it was directed that the questions that arose should be authoritatively answered by a larger Bench. These cases were then placed before a bench of seven Judges. The questions framed were recast and on 6.2.1997, the Court directed that the matter be placed before a Bench of at least eleven Judges, as it was felt that