Name: Jaiveer Singh Bhati

Class: BBA. LLB (5th Year)

Roll no.: A-49

Pramati Educational and Cultural Trust and Ors. Vs. Union of India (UOI) and Ors.

Facts
In the year 2005 the parliament inserted a clause 5 in article 15 of the constitution by 93rd
Amendment Act, 2005. It authorised the state to make special provision by law for the
socially and educationally backward classes or Schedule Caste or Schedule Tribes regarding
their admission to educational institutions. These included private educational institutions
aided as well as unaided by the state. However, it excluded the minority educational
institutions from it. Since this clause put a reservation in the Private educational institutions
which were not funded by the government as well, the petition was filed to strike it down and
declare it unconstitutional. Earlier in case of Ashoka Kumar Thakur v. Union of India & Ors.
[(2008) 6 SCC 1], the matter of private aided institutions was considered and held to be valid.

Article 21A of the Indian constitution is titled as ‘Right to Education’ and it provides that the
State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to fourteen
years in such manner as the State may, by law, determine. Accordingly, Parliament enacted
the 2009 Act to provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to
fourteen years. Later in the case of Society for Unaided Private Schools of Rajasthan v.
Union of India & Anr., the validity of the 2009 Act was challenged before a three-Judge
Bench of the Court. It was held that the 2009 Act is constitutionally valid and shall apply to
the inter-alia: an unaided non-minority school not receiving any kind of aid or grants to meet
its expenses from the appropriate Government or the local authority. Later the said judgement
was challenged in the Pramati Educational and other institutions case. And the validity of the
above two questions were taken up.

Issues
Whether by inserting Clause (5) in Article 15 of the Constitution of India by the Constitution
(Ninety-third Amendment) Act, 2005, Parliament has altered the basic structure or
framework of the Constitution. Whether by inserting Article 21A of the Constitution by the
Constitution (Eighty- Sixth Amendment) Act, 2002, Parliament has altered the basic structure
or framework of the Constitution.
Rule of Law
Any act by any authority to make a new law which affect the basic structure of the
constitution is void. And this violates the rights of the people thereby showing how the law is
superior to all other authority of men.

Analysis
In the afore-mentioned judgement, no mention has been made to the children below the age
of six years. The judgment in case of Unni Krishnan also suffered from the same flaw. It is
very difficult to determine the minority status of an institution. In different states there are
different authorities and criterion governing the same. This judgement makes no mention of a
uniform criterion based upon which an institution can be guaranteed minority status.

Under Section 12(2) of the Act, 2009 the State shall reimburse such school to the extent of
per child expenditure. In the judgement no guidelines have been laid down as to how this
goal is to be achieved. No mention has been made of the procedure which ensures such
reimbursement. Also, just monetary compensation is not enough as a school is denied of its
opportunity to admit students based on its own criteria.

Article 15(5) on the face of it appears to be violation of Article 14 of the Constitution. In

defence of the same the court mentions that “made provisions in law to ensure that private
unaided institutions are compensated”. This defence taken up by the court appears to me as
flawed. This is so because this reasoning paves way for the court to violate any fundamental
right and then later provide monetary compensation for the same.

The court in its judgement has not made any mention of other provisions of the Act,2009.
Other provisions such as infrastructural norms, pupil-teacher ratio and prohibition on
screening tests and capitation fee ban on corporal punishment are being ignored. Over
emphasis has been made on the reservation aspect. One of the contentions by the petitioners
was that, The Objects and Reasons of the Bill which later became the 2009 Act stated that it
is in pursuance to Article 21A and did not make any reference to Article 15(5). Therefore, the
validity of the Act of 2009 should be tested on the basis of Article 21 A. But no justification
or reasoning has been supplied by the court in this behalf.

Conclusion

The Supreme Court failed to see the provisions of the RTE Act on other areas like
infrastructural norms, pupil-teacher ratio, and prohibition on screening tests and capitation
fee and ban on corporal punishment and so on. No doubt, these provisions will be beneficial
to the students studying in the minority schools. It has prohibited the extension of RTE Act to
minority schools by only keeping the provision of 25% quota in mind. Supreme Court did not
take into account the fact that the government-aided minority schools stand on a different
footing from the unaided schools. Needless to say, the former are more amenable to
regulations than the latter.