Universities are different from religious institutions

The M.A.O. College, established by Sir Syed in 1877, as also its outgrowth, the Aligarh Muslim University has been the finest constructive manifestation of Muslim educational and cultural activity after 1857.

- 

The Supreme Court of India in S. Azeez Basha (1967), without even giving the university an opportunity of being heard, had declared it to be an institution that was neither established nor administered by Muslims. The seven-judge Bench judgment in the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) case (2024) is in tune with the series of liberal and progressive decisions on minority rights by the top court in the last 75 years with the only aberration being Azeez Basha (1967), now comprehensively overruled. But to say that the judgment is a 4:3 one may not be correct as on certain points one finds unanimity on the Bench. Even though dissenting judges such as in the 1967 judgment attached much importance to the statutory provisions of the Aligarh Muslim University Act, they were of the view that merely looking at the incorporating statute is not the appropriate test to determine the minority character of a university.