Anjum Kadari v. Union of India: the UP Madarsa Act upheld

The facts in brief

A public-interest petition before the Allahabad High Court, Anshuman Singh Rathore v. Union of India, challenged the Uttar Pradesh Board of Madarsa Education Act 2004. On 22 March 2024 the High Court declared the entire Act unconstitutional — holding that it violated the basic-structure principle of secularism and Article 14 — and directed that madarsa students be accommodated within the formal schooling system.

The Supreme Court stayed that judgment in April 2024, observing prima facie that the High Court had misconstrued the Act. The challenge to the High Court's decision — Special Leave Petition (C) No. 8541 of 2024, together with connected petitions — came before a three-judge bench of Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra. On final hearing, the Court delivered judgment on 5 November 2024.

The questions before the Court

The case raised three questions. First, whether a statute can be struck down for violating the "basic structure" of the Constitution — the ground on which the High Court had relied. Second, whether the Madarsa Act, in regulating religious-cum-secular education, offends secularism or falls within the State's competence over education. Third, whether the specific provisions conferring the "Fazil" and "Kamil" degrees were within the State Legislature's power, given the central regime governing higher education.

What the Court held

Basic structure is not a ground to strike down a statute

The Court held, first, that the High Court had erred in its very approach. A statute cannot be invalidated for offending the abstract "basic structure" of the Constitution. The permissible grounds are narrower and concrete: a law may be struck down only for breaching a provision of Part III, or another constitutional provision, or for want of legislative competence. The basic-structure doctrine governs constitutional amendments, not the validity of ordinary legislation tested in the usual way.

The Act is valid and not anti-secular

On that footing, the Madarsa Act was held to fall within the State's competence to regulate education. The Court held that regulating madarsa education is consistent with the State's positive obligation to ensure that students in recognised madarsas attain a level of competence that allows them to participate in society and earn a living. Such regulation does not, by itself, offend secularism; the High Court's contrary conclusion misconceived both the scheme and the purpose of the Act.

The Fazil and Kamil degrees fall outside State competence

The Court severed and struck down only those provisions of the Act that sought to regulate higher education — specifically the conferment of the "Fazil" and "Kamil" degrees, equated to graduate and post-graduate qualifications.

Higher-education standards, the Court held, fall within Entry 66 of List I — a Union field — and Section 22 of the UGC Act restricts the authority to confer degrees to centrally recognised institutions. The Madarsa Board therefore cannot confer such degrees. Applying the doctrine of severability, the Court excised these provisions while leaving the remainder of the Act intact and valid.

The doctrinal architecture

The judgment makes two structural corrections at once. The first is conceptual: it restores the boundary between the basic-structure doctrine, which polices amendments, and the ordinary grounds of judicial review, which police statutes. By refusing to let "secularism" operate as a free-floating basis to invalidate a law, the Court insists that a challenge identify a specific constitutional breach or a competence defect.

The second is federal. The Act is permitted to do most of what it does — regulate school-level madarsa education — because that lies within the State's domain. It is stopped only where it reaches into higher education, a field occupied by the Union through Entry 66 and the UGC Act. Severability does the rest of the work, preserving the valid core while removing the ultra vires shell. The result is a precise map of where State competence over religious-minority education ends and Union pre-emption begins.

Where it sits in the corpus

Anjum Kadari is the leading 2024 ruling on the validity of religious and minority education statutes, and on the proposition that basic-structure violation is not a ground to strike down ordinary legislation. It reads with the corpus's education line — TMA Pai Foundation v. State of Karnataka and Aligarh Muslim University v. Naresh Agarwal on minority educational institutions — and with the broader jurisprudence on legislative competence and Entry 66 pre-emption.

What comes next

The judgment stabilised the status of madarsa education across States and is now frequently cited on two distinct points: the limits of basic-structure review of ordinary legislation, and the reach of Entry 66 and Section 22 of the UGC Act in pre-empting State degree-conferring schemes. For legislatures, the practical lesson is that a State may regulate recognised institutions to secure educational competence, but it cannot cross into the conferment of higher-education degrees that the central regime reserves to recognised universities and institutions.

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Sources

1. Supreme Court Observer — "Supreme Court overturns HC judgement ordering accommodation of UP madarsa students in formal education system": https://www.scobserver.in/journal/supreme-court-overturns-hc-judgement-ordering-accommodation-of-up-madarsa-students-in-formal-education-system/
2. Bar & Bench — "Supreme Court upholds validity of Uttar Pradesh Board of Madarsa Education Act": https://www.barandbench.com/news/supreme-court-upholds-validity-uttar-pradesh-board-of-madarsa-education-act
3. Verdictum — "'In Conflict With UGC Act': Supreme Court Declares UP Madarsa Act Provisions On Higher-Education Degrees Such As 'Fazil' And 'Kamil' Unconstitutional" (2024 INSC 831): https://www.verdictum.in/court-updates/supreme-court/anjum-kadari-anr-v-union-of-india-ors-2024-insc-831-1556987
4. LiveLaw — Judgment, Anjum Kadari v. Union of India, 2024 INSC 831: https://www.livelaw.in/pdf_upload/1443220242024-11-05-569495.pdf