This is transcript of video lectures from the series of [[15 Video Lectures on Indian Constitution]] **Navigate to other lectures in this series:** [[Introduction to Indian Constitution]] | [[Constituent Assembly Debates]] | [[Preamble of Indian Constitution]] | [[Citizenship in India]] | [[Right to Equality]] | [[Reservation Policies and Indian Constitution]] | [[Freedom of Speech & Expression]] | [[Right to Life and Personal Liberty]] | [[Freedom of Religion]] | [[Rights of Minorities]] | [[Directive Principles]] | [[Fundamental Rights, Directive Principles & Fundamental Duties’ Relationship]] | [[Union Executive Powers & Position of President & Prime Minister]] | [[Indian Judiciary]] | [[Constitutional Amendments & the Basic Structure Theory]] # Chapter 10 - Lecture 10 By Prof. (Dr.) Faizan Mustafa Namaskar, welcome to online course on Indian Constitution which is being offered by Nalsari University of Law and is sponsored by Ministry of Law and Justice Government of India. In the last lecture we talked about freedom of religion and went until article 28. The article 29 and 30 talk of what are called minorities, educational and cultural rights. So, in today's lecture we would see why minority rights are important, who is a minority, are Hindus to a minority in India in some states, in certain conditions. Our minority rights absolute can state regulate them, do minorities have a right to malad minister, can there be aided minority institutions and what kind of reservation can be there in a minority educational institution. So, what are the constitutional provisions on the minority rights. In the previous lecture as I said in the beginning we discuss article 25 to 28 which guarantee freedom of religion and guarantee right to profess practice and propagate one's religion. Article 26 talks of substantial autonomy of religious denominations or any section thereof. Now articles 29 and 30 they appear under the heading cultural and educational rights. Justice H.R. Kanna highlighted the significance of these provisions in the 9 Judgement of Supreme Court in Ahmedabad and Xavier's College and he said these provisions in shine a befitting pledge to the minorities in the constitution of the country whose greatest son had laid down his life for the protection of the minorities. As long as the constitution stands as it is today no tempering with those rights can be countenced any attempt to do so would be not only an act of bridge of faith it would be constitutionally impermissible and that is why you see our Supreme Court has held that minority rights are part of the basic structure of the constitution and it cannot be deleted even by a constitutional amendment. Now let us go deeper into article 29. Is it really the right of minorities? Though the head note of article 29 says protection of interest of minorities but word minority is missing from the actual text of article 29. In fact if you read article 29 you will see that article 29 clause 1 says any sections of Indian citizens having a distinct language is script or culture of its own shall have the right to conserve the same. Therefore article 29 is not a right of a minority it is a right each and every citizen of India can claim if that citizen has his own distinct language is script or culture and then article 29 clause 2 says no citizen shall be denied admission in any educational institution maintained by the state or receiving aid out of state funds on grounds only of religion race caste language or any of them. Article 30 talks of two kinds of minorities that is minorities whether based on religion or language. It does not talk of sexual minorities it does not talk of other non dominant groups. Article 30 gives religious and linguistic minorities equal rights and since both kinds of minorities have come together and have been clapped together Supreme Court has consistently held that minorities are to be defined at the state level as states were carved out on the linguistic lines. India has a huge religious and linguistic diversity and therefore minority rights are not rights of just Muslims and Christians are Hindus too entitled to minority rights. Many of us believe that minority rights are rights of non-Hindus. Indian Supreme Court had adopted the numerical inferiority test and not the powerlessness test in defining minorities. Accordingly minorities are defined at the level of state anyone who is less than 50% in i-state is a minority. Thus in certain states of northeast Punjab and Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir Hindus are religious minority. In all other states Hindus are also entitled to minority rights as linguistic minorities. What are the educational rights of minorities? We are aware that now article 21a provides that state shall provide free and compulsory education to all the children of the age of 6 to 40. New education policy proposes to further expand it. Right to education act was passed in 2009 to give effect to this constitutional amendment. Article 30 is the additional guarantee a special right given to minorities to establish an administer educational institutions of their choice. Now Supreme Court in Inre Kerala Education Bill it's a leading advisory opinion of the Supreme Court of 1957. Observe the key to the understanding of true meaning and implication of the article under consideration are words of their own choice. Supreme Court said the dominant word is choice and the content that article is as wide as the choice of the particular minority community may make it. Therefore under article 30 it is the minority which makes a choice and it is within the powers of the minority to expand its choice as much as it wants. Minorities can establish educational institutions. What is the meaning of educational institution? What is the meaning of establish? Minorities can administer their institutions. What is the meaning of administer? Supreme Court said term educational institution includes a university. Therefore there can be a minority university. Supreme Court also said term establish means to find to bring into existence. In TMAPI Foundation, judgment of the Supreme Court, 11 Judge Ben Judgement. Supreme Court said that this education includes education at all levels. So university education would be covered. So under article 30 minorities are free to set up educational institutions of secular and modern education. You may recall under article 26 religious denominations or any section thereof can establish and administer religious and charitable institutions. So mother sas are not established under article 30. They are established under article 26. Under article 30 we are talking of modern liberal secular education. What is the meaning of right to administer? Right to administer means right to do day to day administration. It includes right to admit students, right to fix fees, right to choose governing body and right to discipline employees. By the way these rights are also available to all non-minority institutions as well. Narsar University of law has every right to fix its fees. Its governing body is as per its act. It has every right to discipline its employees. So these rights right to administer in this sense are common. But then there are special ingredients of administration which are available only to religious and linguistic minorities. Our minority rights absolute. Yes and no. Why yes? Because if you look at the text of article 30 you will find that unlike fundamental rights under article 1921 and 25 article 30 does not mention any restriction in the text of article 30. In article 19 from clauses 2 to 6 number of restrictions are mentioned. In article 25 the opening words themselves are restrictions subject to public order, health, morality and other provisions of this part. Article 21 you have a right to life and personal liberty but this right can be taken away under the procedure established by law. When it comes to article 30 Indian constitution textually speaking does not incorporate or mention any restriction. So it is yes. But then in India our laws are interpreted by the courts and whatever supreme court says becomes binding on all courts throughout the territory of India and article 141. So our supreme court has consistently held that no right can be absolute. So the answer becomes no. Minority rights cannot be absolute. Accordingly municipal and health regulations would be equally applicable on the minority institutions. A minority institution cannot say we will construct building without taking permission from the municipal authorities. No they do not have that right. UGC has prescribed that for these many students you should have these many toilets. No minority institution has a right to say that we will not follow UGC regulations. Similarly educational qualifications for the appointment of teachers, appointment of the principal, appointment of the vice chancellor are decided by UGC and minority educational institutions are bound by that. Can government regulate minority institutions? Yes. In Ahmedabad sends aviors college judgment. Supreme court said regulation must be in the interest of minorities not general public. So the state can come up with regulations. In Reverend Siddharj Bhai, Sbhai, versus the state of Bombay 1962 judgment of the supreme court, supreme court said every government regulation must satisfy a dual test. One just like article 19, the test of reasonableness that the government regulation is reasonable and two that this regulation must be regulated of the educational character of the institution and is conducive to making institution an effective vehicle for the education of the minority community or other persons who resort to it. So regulations are permissible. The regulations must be in the interest of the minority educational institutions to make them more efficient. Can there be an aided minority educational institution? Yes, there are many such institutions like St. Stephen's College. Article 30 clause 2 says, is state in granting aid to educational institutions will not discriminate against any educational institution on the ground that it is under the management of a minority whether based on religion or language. No educational institution has a right to get state aid. But if state is giving aid, in giving aid state will not discriminate against minority educational institutions. In St. Stephen's College versus University of Delhi, Supreme Court said government aid cannot come with such conditions that would virtually deprive minorities of their rights. Similarly, government regulations of recognition or affiliation or aid cannot be destructive or annihilative of minority character of minority educational institution. We also have a statutory commission. There is a national minorities commission and then you have a special commission on education called national minority educational institutions commission to safeguard the rights of the minorities. Can there be minority reservation in admissions? Because Article 29 2 says, there cannot be denial of admission on prohibited grounds of religion race etc. caste etc. The relationship between Article 30 clause 1 and Article 29 clause 2 has been subject of litigation in many many cases. Now the law has been made abundantly clear. There can be a reservation for the minority communities in a minority institution. If it is a religious minority institution, the reservation would be for the religious minority. If it is a linguistic minority institution, the reservation would be for the linguistic minority. Now Article 15 clause 5, an Article 15 clause 6 explicitly exempt minority educational institutions from states, policies of reservation. So SC, ST, OBC, reservation etc. is not applicable on a minority educational institution. The reason is that minority institutions are catering the need of specialized group. And therefore in those institutions, there will be seats reserved for those groups. But I personally believe that minority educational institutions should also ensure that the diversity of the nation is reflected in those institutions. And therefore they must make efforts to get SCs and STs and OBC students. What did we learn today? Minority rights are both for religious as well as linguistic minorities. Minorities are defined not at the national level, but at the level of state. These rights are not absolute. Government has the power to regulate minority educational institutions. In the next lecture, we would discuss the relationship between fundamental rights and directive principles. Thank you very much. Namaskar. ---  *Disclaimer: I am not asserting any claim over this content. The content is entirely from the Ministry of Law & Justice and NALSAR University of Law's joint online course on the Indian Constitution. My effort has been to make the transcript available for people like myself who prefer to read or quote it rather than to listen. This is part of my public self-archiving project. For more details, see [notes.daktre.com](https://notes.daktre.com) or [daktre.com](https://daktre.com).* Last updated: 2026-02-21 22:43