The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday issued a notice to the principal of St. Stephens School on a plea filed by the Chandigarh Administration against the minority status granted to the school by the National Commission of Minority Education Institutions.

The UT Administration had earlier filed similar pleas against two other city-based schools, including St Kabir Public School, whose minority status was stayed by the High Court last week. In their plea filed through Director, School Education, against the minority status of St. Stephens, the city administration said the Commission had “illegally, arbitrarily, unlawfully” granted minority status to the school on September 7, 2016.

The administration contended that the Commission does not have the original jurisdiction to grant minority status to an educational institution and “can only in its appellate jurisdiction issue appropriate directions to the competent authority on the minority status of educational institutions on appeal made by an aggrieved institution”. It said St. Stephens School had not applied for minority status before the competent authority, adding the school had been granted the land by the UT Estate Office on leasehold basis in 1989 but the school management unilaterally altered its Memorandum of Association and terms and conditions of the allotment of land “just to get the minority status”.

“On screening of the original Memorandum of Association of the Society, it does not anywhere emerge that the society was set up by the members belonging to Christian community nor it is mentioned in the MOA that all/some members must belong to the Christian community. Also it is nowhere mentioned…that the educational institution was established for the benefit of the Christian minority community,” the plea reads.

The administration has said that the minority status has been attained by the school just to avoid fulfilling mandatory provisions of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act as the same are not applicable to minority educational institutions.

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