An Allahabad HC bench comprising of Justice Vivek Choudhary and Justice Subhash Vidyarthi on Friday, declared the Uttar Pradesh Board for Madarsa Education Act, 2004 as unconstitutional and violative of the principle of secularism. The bench also directed the state to plan a scheme to accommodate the students studying in Madarsas into the formal education system.

“The state government for the said purpose shall ensure that as per requirement sufficient number of additional seats are created and further if required, sufficient number of new schools are established. The government shall also ensure that children between the ages of 6 to 14 years are not left without admission in duly recognised institutions,” it said. The madrasa Act is also “violative of Section 22 of the University Grants Commission Act, 1956”, the bench said.

Currently, Uttar Pradesh has a total of 16,513 recognised and 8,449 unrecognised madrasas with nearly 25 lakh students.

The court said, “Further, we are not deciding the validity of Section 1(5) of the RTE (Right to Education) Act as we have already held the madrasa Act to be ultra vires and we are also informed by learned counsel for both the parties that in state of UP Vedik Pathshalas do not exist.”

The court also observed that students need to study Islam and its principles to progress to the next class and that modern subjects are either included or offered as optional subjects. Furthermore, the court also observed that the institutions allow only one optional subjects to be studied.

This petition was brought by Anshuman Singh Rathod who claimed that “the provisions, scheme and the environment” created by the madarsa Act violate Articles 14, 15 and 21-A of the Constitution. He also claimed that the madarsa Act failed to provide quality compulsory education up to the age of 14 years, as required under Article 21-A of the Constitution and universal and quality school education to all the children studying in madarsas, as required under Article 21.

The bench also appointed Gaurav Mehrotra, Akber Ahmad and Madhukar Ojha as amici curiae to help the court in reaching the decision. The amici curiae said that the act violated secularism and Articles 14, 15, 16(5), 29(2), 30 and Article 51-A of the Constitution. They also said that the act “is directly in conflict with and violates the UGC Act and entrenches upon the field occupied by the central legislation and thus to the said extent is also ultravires”.

Following the decision of the High Court, all financial aid received from the government to the madarsas will cease, and such madrasas will be abolished.

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