A five-judge bench of the Gujarat High Court on Friday upheld the constitutional validity of the Centre’s pre-matric scholarship scheme for minorities and directed its implementation, after rejecting the Narendra Modi government’s plea that it was discriminatory.
Of the five judges, three upheld the validity of the scholarship scheme while the other two expressed a dissenting view. As the majority view of the high court bench has upheld the scheme, the state government will have to implement it. However, the state government has decided to move the Supreme Court against the high court verdict.
Justices VM Sahai, DH Vaghela and Akil Kureshi were of the opinion that the Central government’s scheme does not violate Article 15(1) of the Constitution. Article 15(1) prohibits the state from discriminating against any citizen on the grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth, or any of them. Hence, directions shall be issued to the state government to implement the scheme, the three judges said.
“The Constitution was framed with an aim of bringing about a peaceful social change. Preamble to the Constitution aimed at achieving social, political and economic justice for all citizens. For achieving such goals, the policy framers must be allowed a certain degree of latitude in experimentation in framing policies and allocation of funds,” the bench said.
The court further held that the scheme is based not only on religion but on the basis of a class of citizens grouped after being identified as underprivileged and suffering from certain handicaps.
The bench further said that the courts do not have the mandate to interfere with policy decisions; further, the scheme is for affirmative action and not for any reservations.
“We must also remember that the scheme pertains to scholarship in primary education and cannot be equated with any kind of reservation,” the bench ruled. The court further said that as affirmative action, it amounts to preferential diversion of public funds in favor of a class of citizens.
The bench held that realisation of the goal of universal literacy by compulsory education could be achieved not just by penal provisions by incentive schemes impelling parents to send their children to schools and enforcement of such schemes.
