The Allahabad High Court has held that an unrecognised madrassa in Uttar Pradesh’s Shravasti district is not liable to be closed down under a state regulation and quashed a show-cause notice issued on May 1, 2025 by the district minority welfare officer in this regard.
Passing the order on January 16 which was made available on Tuesday, a Lucknow bench of Justice Subhash Vidyarthi considered the provisions of the Uttar Pradesh non-governmental Arabic and Persian Madrassa Recognition, Administration and Services Regulation, 2016 which provide that an unrecognised madrassa will not be entitled to receive any grant from the state.
The bench set aside the order of the state government whereby it had show caused the madrassa to close down as it was not recognised.
Interpreting the provisions of the regulation, the bench said closure of unrecognised madrassa is illegal. In its order passed on a writ petition filed by Madrassa Ahle Sunnat Imam Ahmad Raza, the bench clarified that this madrassa would not be entitled to claim any government grant till it was recognised.
Also, the Madrassa Education Board would not be obliged to permit the students of this madrassa to appear in examinations conducted by it and the students would not be entitled to claim the benefit of their qualification acquired from the madrassa for any purposes relating to the state government.
In the petition, it was pleaded that the Supreme Court has classified minority educational institutions into three categories — those which do not seek either aid or recognition from the State, those which want aid and those which want only recognition but not aid.
“The first category of institutions is protected by Article 30(1) of the Constitution,” the petitioner’s counsel Sayyed Farooq Ahmad had argued.
