Bengaluru :

The High Court on Thursday asked the Karnataka government to spell out how it grants a community linguistic minority status.

Justice B V Nagarathna observed that many schools were clamouring for minority status to escape the stipulations of the Right to Education Act.

Hearing petitions seeking linguistic and religious minority status, the court said although the National Commission for Minority Education Act of 2004 was clear about which groups constitute minorities, no guidelines were in place to define educational institutions claiming concessions.

The judge asked the managements of two schools not to fill the mandatory 25 per cent seats under the RTE free quota until the issue was resolved by the court, and directed the government to not take any ‘precipitative action’ against them.

Coorg Public School, run by the Kodagu Academy for Education and Culture in Kodagu district, had approached the court seeking linguistic minority status. Citizen School in Hosakote had claimed it was a school run by a religious minority.

Advocate General Ravivarma Kumar said a group constituting more than 15 per cent of the total population — but constituting the majority — was treated as a linguistic minority. The government would look at the 2011 census to brief the court, he said. The next hearing is on March 12. G R Mohan, advocate for one of the petitioners, said the schools were in a quandary as applications for religious minority status had not been processed by the Department of Public Instruction.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Bengaluru / by Express News Service / March 06th, 2015