SHILLONG: The High Court of Meghalaya has ruled that the State Reservation Policy will not apply to schools set up by the linguistic minorities of the State.
Passing a significant judgment in this regard here on Tuesday, Justice T. Nandakumar Singh has ruled that under Articles 29(1) and 30(1) of the Constitution, the linguistic minorities of the State were entitled to set up educational institutions ‘of their choice’ and the State Government had no right to interfere with their administrative matters, including recruitment of staff and teachers.
Disposing of a writ petition filed by one Sujata Gupta challenging the order of the Government which turned down her appointment as a teacher in Rilbong P.N. Chaudhuri HS School citing State Reservation Policy as the cause of action, the High Court quoted a number of verdicts of the Supreme Court to buttress its own ruling in upholding the rights of the linguistic minorities of the State.
In his 27-page judgment, Justice Singh pronounced that the Bengalees in Meghalaya, who constitute 8 per cent of the state’s population (2001 Census), were linguistic minorities in the State and therefore were entitled to all rights as enshrined in the Constitution. The Court has set aside the order of the Education Department of 2011 which declined to approve Ms Gupta’s appointment on the ground that since the school was receiving grants-in-aid under the deficit system it comes under the purview of State Reservation Policy.
Justice Singh declared Rilbong P.N. Chaudhuri Higher Secondary School as a linguistic minority institution and directed the State Government to appoint Ms Gupta as an Assistant Teacher in accordance with the School Managing Committee’s resolution adopted in December 2008.
The Court has allotted three months’ time to the Government for compliance of the order.
The High Court also prescribed that in order to ‘avoid complicacy’ both the State Government and the School concerned should take appropriate steps in accordance with the National Commission for Minority Education Act, 2004.
Advocate Sibasish Sen appeared on behalf of the petitioner.