New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Friday stayed the Allahabad High Court’s decision declaring ‘UP Board of Madrasa Education Act 2004’ unconstitutional. Along with this, a reply has been sought from the UP government. The court says that the High Court’s decision will affect 17 lakh students. It is not right to instruct students to transfer to another school.
On March 22, the Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court had declared the UP Madrasa Act unconstitutional. The court had said that this is a violation of the principle of secularism. Also, the UP government has been asked to make a scheme, so that the students studying in madrassas can be included in the formal education system.
The survey of madrassas was conducted from 10 September 2022 to 15 November 2022. This time limit was later extended till 30 November. In this survey, about 8441 madrassas were found in the state which were not recognized. Maximum 550 madrassas were found in Moradabad, 350 in Basti and 240 in Muzaffarnagar without recognition.
100 madrasas were not recognized in the capital Lucknow. Apart from this, 90 madrasas in Prayagraj-Mau, 132 in Azamgarh and more than 85 in Kanpur were found unrecognized.
According to the government, at present there are 15 thousand 613 recognized madrassas in the state. In October 2023, the UP government had formed SIT to investigate madrassas. SIT is investigating the foreign funding being given to madrassas.