On 8 November 2024 a seven-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, by a 4:3 majority, overruled the 1968 ruling in S. Azeez Basha v. Union of India that an institution incorporated by statute could never be a minority institution under Article 30(1). The majority, authored by Chandrachud CJ on behalf of himself and Justices Sanjiv Khanna, Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, held that statutory incorporation does not extinguish minority status — what matters is whether the minority community established the institution in substance, traced through ideation, purpose and implementation; and that the conjunctive 'establish and administer' formula in Article 30(1) permits proportionate, not exclusive, minority administration. Three separate dissents — by Surya Kant J, Datta J and S.C. Sharma J — would have preserved Azeez Basha. The question of whether AMU as it exists today satisfies the new establishment test was remitted to a regular bench.
The constitutional status of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for medical and dental admissions was decided three times over seven years. On 18 July 2013, a three-judge bench led by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir struck down the NEET notifications by a 2:1 majority — Justice A.R. Dave dissenting — holding that MCI and DCI lacked statutory power to prescribe a uniform entrance test for private unaided minority institutions. On 11 April 2016, a five-judge Constitution Bench recalled the 2013 judgment for inadequate deliberation. On 29 April 2020, a three-judge bench of Justices Arun Mishra, Vineet Saran and M.R. Shah overruled the 2013 ruling and upheld NEET as a mandatory common entrance examination across all medical and dental institutions in India, including private unaided minority institutions. A close reading of the 2013 majority and dissent, the 2016 recall, the 2020 operative holding, the distinction between entrance examination and admission decision that preserves minority autonomy within the NEET-qualified pool, and the downstream Neil Aurelio Nunes arc on OBC and EWS reservation in NEET-PG.
On 6 December 1991, a 4:1 Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court held that minority educational institutions — aided or unaided — retain the right under Article 30(1) to admit students of their own community on a preferential basis up to approximately 50% of seats, with the remainder filled by merit from the general pool. Justice Jagannatha Shetty's majority harmonised Article 29(2) with Article 30(1); Justice Kasliwal dissented. T.M.A. Pai (2002) later calibrated the rigid 50% cap institution-by-institution but left the autonomy floor intact.
On 12 August 2005 a seven-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, in P.A. Inamdar v. State of Maharashtra, refined T.M.A. Pai (2002) on the four-fold typology of educational institutions and held that the State cannot impose reservation or admission quotas on private unaided professional institutions — minority or non-minority. Chief Justice Lahoti's unanimous judgment endorsed common entrance testing, retained the Islamic Academy regulatory-committee model for fees in an interim role, disapproved Islamic Academy's directions on State-percentage quotas in unaided institutions, and held that Article 29(2) does not override Article 30(1) in minority unaided institutions — vindicating the partial dissent of Quadri J and Ruma Pal J in T.M.A. Pai. The 93rd Constitutional Amendment Act 2005, inserting Article 15(5), was Parliament's direct legislative response.
On 31 October 2002 an eleven-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, in T.M.A. Pai Foundation v. State of Karnataka, comprehensively re-stated the law on educational institutions in India — recognising the right to establish and administer an institution as an occupation under Article 19(1)(g), settling the State-wise determination of minority status, drawing the four-fold aided/unaided × minority/non-minority typology that still governs the field, overruling the free-seats/payment-seats scheme of Unni Krishnan as applied to private unaided institutions, and reading down the rigid 50% cap of St. Stephen's College on minority preference. A close reading of Chief Justice Kirpal's majority, the five separate opinions, the partial dissents of Quadri J and Ruma Pal J on the Article 29(2)/30(1) interaction, and the doctrinal arc through Islamic Academy, Inamdar, the 93rd Amendment and the RTE Act.