The plea had been by Professor Syeda Saiyidain Hameda and others. They were represented by Senior Advocate Anand Grover and Advocate Fuzail Ahmad Ayyubi. The plea argued that the manner in which the order dated February 7 was issued is alleged to be fundamentally flawed, unlawful, and influenced by improper motives. It is claimed to have disregarded statutory provisions, as well as the Memorandum of Association and the Society’s Rules and Regulations. The petitioners further argued that since the MAEF was registered as an Autonomous Society it cannot act at the “dictates of the Union of India.” The petitioners also maintained that while the budget of the society had been slashed, it can continue to maintain sufficient funds to maintain its objectives. They had further argued that the closure of the MAEF was contrary to the Right to Education and Right to Equality of the Educationally Backward Minorities under Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India.

The Centre, specifically the Ministry of Minority Affairs, submitted the minutes of the General Body meeting of MAEF held on March 7 which revealed that the closure came after the unanimous decision of the general body. As per the court order, the members of the 15- member general body include the Union Minister of Minority Affairs who is the President, the Vice Chancellor, Aligarh Muslim University, the Vice Chancellor, Jamia Millia Islamia, the Joint Secretary, Ministry of Minority Affairs, the Chairman, Education and Women Welfare Committee of the Central Waqf Council and the Secretary, Central Waqf Council. The rest of the nine members were individuals nominated by the president. The ministry also argued that it has brought in more infrastructural change in the past few decades than the MAEF since its inception, and argued that the MAEF does not offer any “additional value” and is thereby, obsolete.

According to the court, the dissolution of the MAEF was deemed a “well-considered decision” made by its General Body in accordance with the organisation’s Bye Laws and provisions outlined in the Act of 1860. The court also stated that it found no impropriety or irregularity in the manner in which the General Body took the decision.

The MAEF was shut down in February this year after The Ministry of Minority Affairs (MoMA) ordered the Maulana Azad Education Foundation to be shut down without any explanation. The directive was issued on February 7, 2024 and it instructed the immediate closure of the foundation.

Founded in 1989 and funded by the Ministry of Minority Affairs, MAEF played an important role in promoting educational opportunities for minority groups in India. Over the years, the Foundation administered various schemes to uplift minority communities. In 2017-18, about 115,000 girls were awarded scholarships under the Begum Hazrat Mahal National Scholarship Scheme, an initiative that was started by the MAEF. The scholarship has now been consolidated into the Pradhan Mantri Education Empowerment Scheme (PMEES) under the Ministry of Minority Affairs in 2023. 

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The post Delhi High Court dismisses petition challenging closure of the Maulana Azad Education Foundation appeared first on SabrangIndia.

A termination notice was instructed to be given to forty-three contractual employees. The Ministry of Minority Affairs also mandated the transfer of surplus funds to the Consolidated Fund of India. The Maulana Azad Education Foundation possessed assets valued at Rs 1073.26 crore as of November 30, 2023, alongside liabilities amounting to Rs 403.55 crore.

According to the directive, the assets are to be transferred to the Central Wakf Council, which will take on the administrative responsibility for the affected employees.

The closure of the foundation has hardly made news with only select independent media outlets covering the decision.

The MAEF was for the upliftment of minority community members. To be recipients of these schemes, one had to be of the six minority groups which are Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis and Jains. Founded with the mission of promoting education among the marginalised sections of society, the Maulana Azad Education Foundation was funded by the Ministry of Minority Affairs and the ministry took on the role of the ex-officio President of the Foundation. Since its official registration under the Societies Registration Act, 1860, on July 6, 1989, the Foundation has brought about various schemes for minorities.

The MAEF used to administer scholarships such as the Begum Hazrat Mahal National Scholarship for minority girl students. This scholarship, for pre-matric and post-matric girl students was in 2023 subsumed under the Pradhan Mantri Education Empowerment Scheme (PMEES) as part of the Ministry of Minority Affairs in 2023.

Secondly, it started the Gharib Nawaz Employment Scheme for Minorities in the fiscal year 2017-18 to aid youth from minority communities through skill-based employment. The scheme sought to provide short-term job-oriented skill development courses to minorities as a way to increase employability by focusing on school dropouts and other minority youths.

In 2021, the then Minority Affairs Minister, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi had told the parliament that 371 training centres were opened under Gharib Nawaz Employment Scheme across the country. The scheme, according to Naqvi, guaranteed 70 % employment, out of which 50 % would ensure placement in the organised sector. Naqvi mentioned that over 21.5 lakh minority youth had helped get skills and training from schemes by the government, including the Gharib Nawaz Employment Scheme, Seekho aur Kamao, Nai Manzil etc.

Not a sudden end to MAEF?

In the 2022-23 Union Budget, there was a staggering reduction of over 99 % in funds allocated to the Maulana Azad Education Foundation (MAEF). In contrast to the previous year’s budget for 2021-2022, where MAEF received Rs 90 crore, the current budget allocates a mere 1 lakh (0.01 crore) to the foundation, the New Indian Express reported. According to the newspaper, the foundation refused to comment when the NIE reached out to them at the time. The website of the MAEF also remains to be updated. The foundation has a report by committee on its website that is a report on the condition of minorities from 2017. The Home page of the website says that it was last updated in October, 2023.

The data from the only evaluation report available on the website is from 2010, where the organisation states that around 12064 girl students were recipients of the scholarship schemes by the MAEF in 2008-09, and since its introduction in 2003 till 2009, the foundation had given scholarships to over 27,000 minority girls. The report also details that about 970 NGO’s in disadvantaged areas received aid from the foundation to give basic educational infrastructure and facilities in areas which have a concentration of educationally backward minorities.

The Ministry of Minority Affairs saw an increase in its allocation, with Rs 5,020.50 crore allotted in the 2022-23 budget, marking a rise of Rs 209.73 crore compared to the previous year’s revised allocation of Rs 4,346.45 crore. The Indian Express further reported that in the same year over a 1000 girl students who had applied for the Begum Hazrat Mahal Scholarship missed out on receiving their scholarships did not receive the scholarship because the ‘verification’ remained ‘pending’ by the nodal officers of their districts, which remained the status until the time of the scholarship lapsed in 2021-2022. This information was only released after a petitioner filed an RTI in Gujarat’s Jamnagar.

What could be the effect of the withdrawal of the provisions under MAEF?

In 2022, the union government cancelled two important scholarships granted to minority community members, which include the pre-matric scholarship and the Maulana Azad National Fellowship. The move left countless students unsupported and without a means for education. The cancellation of the pre-matric scholarship, which provided a meagre sum of support to minority students from classes 1 – 8, was justified by the ministry as a move that was to bring the Ministry of Minority Affairs on par with the Ministry of Social Justice, as other pre-matric scholarships were only for classes 9-10. Interestingly, the BJP government has a long history of opposing provisions for minorities. In 2008,when pre-matric scholarships were started, the Gujarat government, led by the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi, had challenged it in court arguing that the centrally administered scholarship was a scheme based on religion and argued that the state should not be obligated by the Centre to enforce such a program, according to a report by The Wire. In 2017 During 2017-18, about 1,15,000 girls were given scholarship under the Begum Hazrat Mahal National Scholarship Scheme that was started by MAEF.

Similarly, a recent report by The Mooknayak has stated that nearly 50% of the funds that slotted for minority educational programs have not been used. The report stated that activist MA Akram filed an enquiry under the Right to Information Act and discovered concerning data in the utilisation of funds designated for the fee reimbursement scheme where despite an allocation of Rs 305.8 crore for these specific purposes, a substantial sum of Rs 174.23 crore remained unutilized. Similarly, the Centre for Educational Development of Minorities, which is slated to provide coaching for competitive examinations, did not use more than half of its allocated funds.

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A scholarship serves as a crucial lifeline to poor minority children to access education, at par with the other privileged communities and classes of India. Not only has the Government shrugged the responsibility of making education accessible universally, but, on December 9, 2022, the Union government announced the union government’s decision to discontinue the Maulana Azad National Fellowship (MANF), a scholarship for students from minority communities, from this academic year.

During the ongoing Winter Session of the Parliament, Lok Sabha Member of Parliament T. N. Prathapan had the Ministry of Home Affairs whether they have data of fellowships distributed among minority students for higher education, and to provide the details regarding the same, year-wise since 2012.

In response to his question, Union Minority Affairs Minister Smriti Irani informed the Lok Sabha that “the Government provides fellowship for higher education through various Schemes, including the Maulana Azad National Fellowship (MANF) Scheme, which are implemented by different Ministries/Departments. All these Schemes, except MANF, are open for candidates of all communities including minorities but the data of fellowship distributed among minority students is captured only under the MANF Scheme.”

When further asked to provide the details of the number of student beneficiaries of various minority scholarships/ fellowships since 2012 as well as the details of Maulana Azad National Fellowship (MANF) including funds distributed and number of beneficiaries since 2014, Smriti Irani provided that “The number of beneficiaries covered under the 3 Scholarship Schemes of Ministry of Minority Affairs namely Pre-Matric Scholarship Scheme, Post Matric Scholarship Scheme and Merit-cum-Means based Scholarship Scheme since 2012-13 is given at Annexure. The MANF Scheme was implemented by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and as per the data provided by UGC 6722 candidates were selected under the Scheme between 2014-15 and 2021-22 and fellowships to the tune of ₹ 738.85 crore were distributed during the same period.”

Post this, the Union Minority Affairs Minister Smriti Irani informed the Lok Sabha that the Union government has decided to discontinue the Maulana Azad National Fellowship (MANF) from 2022-23 for minorities as according to them, the scheme overlaps with various other fellowship schemes for higher education.

“Since the MANF Scheme overlaps with various other fellowship Schemes for higher education being implemented by the Government and minority students are already covered under such Schemes, hence the Government has decided to discontinue the MANF Scheme from 2022-23.”

Smriti Irani provided the above mentioned information in a written reply to questions put forth by Congress MP TN Prathapan.

However, Prathapan informed that he would bring up the matter in Parliament, as he deemed this move to be unfair, as reported by the Hindu. By taking this action, many researchers will lose their opportunity to continue their research, he further declared. National Students Union’s Jamia Millia Islamia president NS Abdul Hameed said that the decision may negatively affect Muslim, Sikh, and Christian students, who are not regarded as Other Backward Classes in some states,

According to Hameed, who spoke to The Hindu, “the scholarships for minorities, OBCs, Dalits, and Adivasis used to be overlapped as the applicants may be from the same socioeconomic or religious backgrounds. We have been requesting that the Center fix the problems. They completely stopped the scholarship rather than fixing the errors.”

The entire answer may be read here:

Brief about the Maulana Azad National Fellowship

The Maulana Azad National Fellowship (MANF) was launched in 2009. It provided financial assistance to students from six notified minority communities – Buddhists, Christians, Jains, Muslims, Parsis and Sikhs – to pursue MPhil and PhD. The MANF for minority students is a five year scholarship for minority doctoral candidates, so as to enable them to finish pursuing higher education and find employment in academic and educational institutes. Only CBSE-NET or CSIR-NET qualified minority scholars are eligible. The student must be enrolled in a full time course and will not be eligible for any other government support after becoming a recipient of this fellowship. All the above schemes have a 30% reservation of seats for female candidates. In all the scholarship schemes, preference is given to poor and senior students and even in renewals the merit does not play a major role. It is only in the case of a tie that merit of the students is called upon to decide who will be the beneficiary.

Sanctions to scholarships by the Centre

As much as ₹ 15,785.36 cr worth scholarships were sanctioned under Pre-Matric, Post-Matric, Merit-cum-Means and Begum Hazrat Mahal scholarship programmes, the Minority Affairs Ministry had said on March 31, 2022.

Congress MP Dean Kuriakose asked Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi about funds sanctioned and disbursed under the four schemes, one of which is implemented by Maulana Azad Education Foundation. In response, the Ministry provided state-wise figures of aggregate funds sanctioned from 2014-15 to 2021-22.

Over the years, Uttar Pradesh received the highest sanctions at a total of ₹2,610.33 cr. The lowest sanctions were for Arunachal Pradesh at ₹ 0.03 cr in total. In a separate answer to Congress MP Mohammad Jawed and VCK MP Ravikumar D. the Ministry said that the total expenditure on Scholarships sanctioned to Muslim beneficiaries under Pre-Matric, Post-Matric and Merit-cum-Means based scholarship scheme during 2018-19 to 2020-21 was ₹ 4,796.64 cr.

When Kuraikose asked about government proposals to increase the amount disbursed per student in these programmes, Naqvi said that all aspects including raising the number and amount of scholarships are looked into by the Ministry during scheme revision.

Similarly, regarding proposals to increase allocation as per the higher Gross Enrolment Rates achieved by states, he said, “The budget allocation for educational empowerment of minority communities which was ₹ 1,888.50 cr in 2013-14 has been increased to ₹ 2,515 cr in BE 2022-23. The distribution of scholarships among states/UTs is made on the basis of population of minorities in the state/UT as per the Census. It was based on Census 2001 up to 2017-18 and thereafter, it is based on Census 2011.”

The gradual removal of minorities from access to academic spaces

An Exclusive Study conducted was by SabrangIndia focusing on the doom that has been hanging over the Scholarships for Minority Students since the Modi government came to power. Based on the analysis conducted by SabrangIndia, an overall decline in pre-matric, post-matric and MCM scholarship was shown to have declined beyond the year 2014-15. While the financial disbursement to the MCM scholarship generally had increased substantially over the period, the MCM scholarship for minority students at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels and of the pre-matric and the post-matric scholarships had declined and the reduction in eligible students at that level has shown a lag.

Based on another exclusive study conducted by SabrangIndia on the increasingly diminishing funds of the minorities, even the Buddhists, under the Modi Regime, it found that all the larger minorities namely Muslims, Sikhs and Christians have experienced a decline in the outreach of the scholarships while Buddhists have seen a massive decline in states where their population is significant.

This situation of the Centre deliberately making it difficult for the minority communities to access higher education shows the priorities of our government. This is not, and will not, be the first instance where the rights of the minorities are cut short. The said erroneous decision by the Centre depicts that the Modi-led government has neglected the educational sector and especially the educational infrastructure pertaining to minorities. While the centre has justified the act by saying that other overlapping scholarships exist, this decision will only lead to exclusion of the already under-represented minority communities in academic spaces.

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