Aligarh Muslim University Minority Status : Live Updates From Supreme Court Hearing [Day 2]

Dhavan takes the bench through the amendment in the 1981 Act

J Khanna : the issue would be whether the amendment which were made deal with the reasoning part of the judgement (basha) and try an overrule reasoning part or in fact they are making changes in the statute itself

Dhavan : the subsequent decisions of the Court and the statute

Dhavan : s. 2 takes away from the original act to remove the word 'establishment'

J Khanna : that's only incorporate

Dhavan: and the Allahabad HC struck this down saying in the abuse of Judicial powers, parliament was sitting in appeal. 

Dhavan refers to the statement of objective of the original Act, now refers to S.2

CJI : look at the original act and then see how that act has been modified by the 81 amendment

Dhavan : when ill look at the act ill refer to the original provision  

Dhavan refers to the National Minorities Act

The bench discusses amongst themselves

Dhavan takes the bench to the written submissions and provisions of the AMU Act 1920 and UGC Act

Dhavan : statutory intervention will not override 30, and that is the problem in A Basha

Dhavan : the purpose of the act has to be look at, this adds to my argument of antecedent history

CJI : now you go to the third aspect the analysis of the statute

Dhavan : Basha through yashpal indicates the UGC Act and also recognises the NME Act

CJI : what we'd like to have is a clear analysis of how the 1920 statute has unfolded, the original provision and what is the effect of the amendments then we can to the UGC that is to our mind very crucial

Dhavan : in the light of these decisions it cannot be said that Basha is good law, therefore whatever else my lords may say Basha is no longer a good law . Basha says that when there is an intervention of a statute then you lose your character as a minority institution.

Dhavan : second, basha is contradictory because it says minority institutions includes universities but then my lord when there is an intervention of a statute you lose your status all the decisions that I have quoted goes against that. The third aspect was that Basha did not look at the whole act.

Dhavan takes the bench through the concluding part of TMA Pai

Dhavan reads 158 to elucidate on Secularism

"158.The one billion population of India consists of six main ethnic groups and fifty-two major tribes; six major religions and 6,400 castes and sub- castes; eighteen major languages and 1,600 minor languages and dialects. The essence of secularism in India can best be depicted if a relief map of India is made in mosaic, where the aforesaid one billion people are the small pieces of marble that go into the making of a map. Each person, whatever his/her language, caste, religion has his/her individual identity, which has to be preserved, so that when pieced together it goes to form a depiction with the different geographical features of India."