The Section that requires setting up of School Management Committees under the Right to Education Act will not apply to minority institutions as it can’t override Article 30 of the Constitution, Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal said at the opening session of a five-day national assembly of the Conference of Religious India (CRI) here on Monday. Sibal later told The Indian Express that the minorities will retain the right to administer their educational institutions.

Under Article 30, minorities are allowed to run and administer their own educational institutions. The government can only intervene in cases of alleged corruption. However, a section of the RTE Act requires that 75 per cent of a school’s management committee consist of guardians or parents.

“If implemented, this provision would violate the Constitution and the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions guidelines,” explained Fr Kuriala Chittattukalam, executive secretary for Education and Culture of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India. “We wanted a clear statement on this. The minister said it would be done. He made it very clear today and we are pleased,” he said, clarifying that they did not want the sections to apply to minority institutions, aided or unaided.

In the 2009 draft of the Act, only unaided schools are excluded from setting up school management committees. But in the case of OBC quotas in higher education sector, the UPA had previously exempted all institutions covered under Article 30.

Sibal said that the provisions in the RTE can’t override Article 30 and minority institutions have the right to administer their institutions. “It will be taken care of... Your institutions will not be affected,” he said at the conference.

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