Around 1.3 million students studying in madrasas of Uttar Pradesh will no longer have to search for other options from this academic session after the Supreme Court stayed the order of the Allahabad High Court scrapping the UP Board of Madarsa Education Act, 2004.
The Allahabad High Court had given the order on March 22 last declaring the madrasa education Act as unconstitutional. The apex court said that the high court’s statement that the board violates the secular principle of the Constitution is not correct.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud has also issued a notice to the Central Government and Uttar Pradesh government in this matter and fixed next date of hearing in the case in July.
On March 22, the Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court had directed the state government to include the students studying in madrasas of the state to other schools.
The division bench of the high court comprising Justice Vivek Chaudhary and Justice Subhash Vidyarthi said in its order that the government does not have the power to constitute a board for religious education or to establish a school education board for any particular religion.
Earlier, state officials said here that the children studying in the madrasas will be admitted to government-run primary and secondary schools.
The officials said the state government had formed a five-member committee under the chairmanship of DM in each district. This committee can issue instructions to admit such children in private schools also. Even after this, if the students are deprived of getting admission, then the committee will also work on increasing the number of seats at the local level and establishing new schools.
On Thursday, Chief Secretary Durga Shankar Mishra has given instructions to the district magistrates to prepare for admission of all madarsa students in government or other schools.
There are about 16,000 madrasas in UP where a total of 13.57 lakh students are studying. Of them, 560 of the madrasas are subsidized with 9,500 teachers.