SC rejects plea questioning SC’s RTE–minority exemption order

Supreme Court penalized an NGO ₹1 lakh for a petition challenging minority institutions' exemption from the Right to Education Act

New Delhi

The Supreme Court on Friday lashed out at a petition

The Supreme Court on Friday lashed out at a petition that sought to reopen a question the court has already settled -- whether minority educational institutions are exempt from the Right to Education Act. A bench led by Justice BV Nagarathna held that such a petition was not merely misconceived but also struck at the institutional foundations of the judiciary, while imposing a monetary penalty of ₹1 lakh on the petitioner NGO.

“You cannot do this to the Supreme Court…We are enraged. This is against the entire system of the judiciary in this country if you start filing such cases. You don’t know the seriousness of your case,” said the bench, also comprising Justice R Mahadevan.

The bench said it was “restraining” itself by limiting the penalty to ₹1 lakh, warning that litigants should not “bring down the judiciary” by invoking Article 32 to challenge the court’s own judgments.

“You want to crumble the judiciary of this country,” remarked the bench, calling the petition an abuse of both the court’s jurisdiction and its time.

What appeared to trouble the court equally was the role of the lawyers behind the petition. “What is happening here? Advocates are giving such advice?” asked the bench, calling the petition a “grossest abuse”. The court stopped short of issuing contempt, but its message to the Bar was unambiguous – that professionals who “know the law” cannot encourage challenges to binding Supreme Court precedent through constitutional writs.

The petition, filed by an NGO, United Voice for Education Forum, had sought a declaration that the exemption granted to minority institutions - and upheld a decade ago in the Constitution bench judgment in Pramati Educational and Cultural Trust Vs Union of India, was unconstitutional. It urged that minority schools, aided or unaided, be brought within the fold of Section 12(1)(c) of the RTE Act, which mandates 25% reservation at entry level for children from weaker sections. The petition also called for an expert committee to design a balancing framework between Article 30 rights of minorities and the guarantee of free and compulsory education under Article 21A.

The filing three months after a bench of justices Dipankar Datta and Manmohan had questioned whether the 2014 decision had inadvertently weakened the idea of universal elementary education. Doubting the correctness of the Constitution bench ruling, that bench observed that excluding minority institutions from the RTE Act “leads to fragmentation of the common schooling vision” and risks reinforcing social divides rather than dissolving them. They said the judgment “might have, unknowingly, jeopardised the very foundation” of Article 21A, and referred four substantial questions of law to the Chief Justice of India (CJI) for placement before a larger bench.

That reference arose while the bench was dealing with conflicting positions taken by the Bombay and Madras high courts on the applicability of the Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) to minority institutions. Analysing the 2014 ruling and the high court judgments, justices Datta and Manmohan held that they remained bound by Pramati, but insisted that the rights under Articles 21A and 30 “can and must co-exist mutually”. TET, they held, would remain mandatory for all teachers in non-minority schools, while teachers in aided and unaided minority institutions would continue to be governed by Pramati until the reference is decided.

The bench also drew attention to the consequences of the blanket exemption carved out by Pramati, noting that even aided minority institutions, which receive public funds, were freed from implementing the RTE Act. This, it warned, had led to a surge in institutions seeking minority status “to bypass the regime ordained by the RTE Act”, distorting both the purpose of Article 30(1) and the mandate of Article 21A.

Friday’s hearing, however, turned not on the merits of that doctrinal debate but on the impropriety of the procedural route chosen. Justice Nagarathna’s bench noted that seeking to unsettle a Constitution bench judgment through a writ petition under Article 32 was not only untenable but an attack on the hierarchical discipline of the court.

Imposing ₹1 lakh in costs on the petitioner, the bench said the penalty was intended as a “message to others”.