In March 2026, a Delhi HC Division Bench dismissed an LPA arising from a denied EWS/DG admission, holding that Article 21A and the RTE Act 2009 do not confer a constitutional right to admission in a particular school of choice once the academic year has ended and an alternative seat has been allotted.
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.
On 10 April 2008, a five-judge Constitution Bench upheld the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act 2006 — providing 27% OBC reservation in centrally-funded higher education institutions including the IITs, IIMs, AIIMS and central universities — together with the 93rd Constitutional Amendment that inserted Article 15(5). The Bench extended the Indra Sawhney creamy-layer doctrine to OBC reservation in higher education, preserved the 50% reservation ceiling and required periodic review and quantifiable data. The validity of Article 15(5) for private unaided institutions was left for Pramati (2014) to settle.
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.
The May-June 2026 cycle in Indian education law has produced three threads running in parallel — the NEET-UG 2026 paper-leak architecture culminating in the 21 June re-exam under Supreme Court supervision; a series of doctrinal references and PILs that have put the Pramati (2014) minority exemption, the pre-primary extension of Article 21A and the Tanvi Behl institutional-preference architecture all simultaneously in play; and a regulatory cluster including the UGC Equity Regulations 2026, the Cabinet approval of the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhikshan Bill, the Supreme Court ruling on the Delhi private-school fee regulation, the CLAT 2026 merit-list dispute, and the Bar Council five-year LLB question.
On 28 April 2026 the Supreme Court — Justices P.S. Narasimha and Alok Aradhe — dismissed the appeal of Lucknow Public School, Eldico, which had refused admission to a child from a disadvantaged group duly allotted by the State Government under Section 12(1)(c) of the RTE Act and the UP RTE Rules 2011 for the 2024-25 pre-primary year on the school's plea of 'uncertainty' about eligibility. The ruling holds that once a State authority allots a child under the RTE scheme, the neighbourhood school's duty to admit is mandatory and immediate; the school cannot interpose its own eligibility scrutiny or procedural conditions; and any refusal or delay is unlawful. The Bench characterised the 25% RTE reservation as a 'national mission' rooted in Article 21A, hardening the operational architecture that Society for Unaided Private Schools v. Union of India (2012) had set in motion.
On 2 May 2016, a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court — in a judgment authored by Justice A.K. Sikri — upheld the Madhya Pradesh Niji Vyavsayik Shikshan Sanstha (Pravesh Ka Viniyaman Avam Shulk Ka Nirdharan) Adhiniyam 2007, which subjected private unaided professional educational institutions to State regulation over admissions, fee fixation, reservation and eligibility criteria. The Bench formally articulated and applied the four-prong proportionality test — legitimate aim, suitability, necessity and balancing — as the working standard for assessing reasonableness of restrictions under Article 19(6) on the Article 19(1)(g) right of educational institutions. A close reading of Sikri J's reasoning, the post-T.M.A. Pai and Inamdar regulatory architecture, education as a noble occupation, the proportionality test's doctrinal afterlife in Puttaswamy, Aadhaar and Anuradha Bhasin, and the regulatory framework that NEET would inherit in CMC Vellore (2020).
On 22 June 1984, a three-judge bench of Justice P.N. Bhagwati, Justice A.N. Sen and Justice Ranganath Misra held that wholesale state-domicile reservation in MBBS admissions is unconstitutional under Article 14 — every Indian citizen has only one domicile, the territory of India under Article 5. Institutional preference for graduates of the same institution was preserved as qualitatively distinct from domicile reservation; PG specialty admissions were directed to be on all-India merit. Saurabh Chaudri (2003) raised the all-India PG quota to 50% and Dr Tanvi Behl (2025) reaffirmed the framework against Chandigarh's UT-resident quota.
On 6 May 2014, a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court — in a unanimous judgment authored by Justice A.K. Patnaik — upheld both the 86th Constitutional Amendment Act 2002 (inserting Article 21A) and the 93rd Constitutional Amendment Act 2005 (inserting Article 15(5)). The Bench held that the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009 and the special-provisions power under Article 15(5) do not apply to minority educational institutions, whether aided or unaided. Read with Society for Unaided Private Schools of Rajasthan v. Union of India (2012) — which had already carved out the minority unaided exemption — Pramati completes a two-step minority exemption from the post-Article 21A reservation architecture. A close reading of Patnaik J's reasoning on basic structure, the Article 30(1) minority autonomy core, the relationship with T.M.A. Pai and Inamdar, the legislative reversal of Inamdar's holding on private unaided reservation, and the live September 2025 reference questioning the Pramati exemption.
On 12 April 2012, a 2:1 majority of the Supreme Court — Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia and Justice Swatanter Kumar — upheld the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009, including the Section 12(1)(c) mandate that all recognised schools reserve 25% of Class I seats for children from disadvantaged groups and weaker sections. The majority itself carved out the exemption for private unaided minority schools, on the reasoning that the mandate would impair the Article 30(1) right. Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan dissented. The two-step minority exemption began here; Pramati (2014) completed it for aided minority schools.
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.