Protection of minorities is the hallmark of a civilisation. Franklin Roosevelt rightly reminded us that “no democracy can long survive which does not accept as fundamental to its very existence the recognition of the rights of minorities”. The Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on minority rights, starting from the Kerala Education Bill case (1957), has been one that any constitutional court can be proud of. S Azeez Basha (1967) was a rare exception that was widely criticised, with India’s greatest constitutional law expert H M Seervai terming it as “productive of great public mischief”. On Friday, a seven-judge bench, by majority of 4:3, overruled a 56-year-old judgment and laid down the indicia to determine the minority character of an institution that had been left unanswered even by the 11-judge bench in TMA Pai Foundation (2002). In Anjuman-e-Rehmania (1981), a two-judge bench noted these criticisms and referred the matter to the Chief Justice of India to constitute a seven-judge bench. In December 1981, Parliament amended the Aligarh Muslim University Act of 1920 and clarified the doubts about the word “establish” in the long title and preamble of the original Act by deleting it. It explicitly declared in Section 2 (L) that Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) was established by the Muslims of India as an institution of their choice, which had originated as MAO College and was subsequently incorporated.

Chief Justice S R Das in the Kerala Education Bill case had said that minority institutions are primarily for the minority that has established the institution, and there shall be only a “sprinkling of outsiders” in such institutions. However, clarity on this issue came as late as the St Stephen’s (1992) and TMA Pai Foundation judgments. AMU did not have Muslim........

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