On 9 December 2016, the Delhi High Court Division Bench — Pradeep Nandrajog, J. and Yogesh Khanna, J. — held that Section 52(1)(i) of the Copyright Act 1957, which permits reproduction of any work by a teacher or a pupil in the course of instruction, is to be read purposively and broadly and is not confined to physical classroom acts. Course-pack preparation by a university for its students falls within Section 52(1)(i) provided the inclusion is justified by the purpose of instruction. The DB articulated a fairness test rooted in the extent justified by purpose — qualitative and quantitative — and declined to transplant the US four-factor fair-use test. The suit was restored to the single judge for fact-trial; the publishers withdrew it on 9 March 2017.
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 30 July 1992 a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court in Mohini Jain v. State of Karnataka read the right to education out of Article 21 read with the Directive Principles in Articles 38, 39, 41 and 45 and struck down capitation fees in professional colleges. Seven months later, on 4 February 1993, a five-judge Constitution Bench in Unni Krishnan v. State of A.P. refined and re-stated the right — bifurcating its content so that free and compulsory education up to the age of fourteen became enforceable as a fundamental right (later codified as Article 21A by the 86th Amendment) while education beyond that age remained subject to the State's economic capacity. The Bench also imposed the free-seats / payment-seats scheme on private unaided professional institutions and capped capitation fees as unconstitutional. The combined two-step articulation set the doctrinal frame from which the 86th Amendment (2002), the RTE Act 2009, Society for Unaided Private Schools (2012) and Pramati (2014) all proceeded.
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.