The Delhi High Court has held that an aided minority institution does not require any prior permission or approval from the Directorate of Education (DoE) for the appointment of principals, teachers or other employees. This was stated in a report by PTI.

Justice C Hari Shankar, in a judgement passed on May 28, said an aided minority institution had the absolute right to appoint a person of its choice and the extent of DoE's regulation is limited to prescribing the qualification and experience for posts of principal and teacher

The court's order was passed on a petition by the Delhi Tamil Education Association which runs seven aided linguistic minority schools in the capital with 6,879 students.

The petitioner pointed out that Article 30(1) of the Constitution of India guarantees a minority institution the absolute right of establishment and administration.

The state can, the court said, regulate the proper utilisation of the aid but it cannot subjugate the minority educational institution to its dictates in the matter of appointment of teachers, or principals.

"They are, therefore, members of the selection committee merely in form, not in substance. They cannot play any part in the selection of either the teachers or of the principal in the schools run by the aided minority institution. Effectively, the DoE has no control over the appointment of teachers or principals in the aided minority schools run by the petitioner," the court said.

"Statutorily, therefore, the appointment of any employee in an aided minority school, by the managing committee of the school, does not require the approval of the DoE," it added.

The bench said the fact that one person may be a manager in more than one managing committee is clearly, at the very worst, a curable defect and cannot, therefore, constitute a legitimate basis to refuse permission to the petitioner to fill in the vacancies.