Cabinet nod to minority institutes panel

The Cabinet today approved an Ordinance for setting up of a national commission for minority educational institutions as per the Constitutional Amendment Bill that was passed in the winter session of Parliament. An Act replacing the Ordinance will be passed in the coming session of Parliament.

A constitutional anomaly had arisen in the case of minority educational institutions which were deemed to be solely for the minorities and were to have been exempted from reserving seats for Scheduled Castes, tribes and Other Backward Castes. This, it was argued, interfered with the minority status of these institutions.

The government, therefore, decided to set up a commission that will scrutinise "" subject to certain criteria "" which educational institutions were indeed minority institutions and accordingly exempt them from reserving seats.

The Cabinet today also okayed corrections in the spelling of some castes to be included in the central list of Other Backward Classes so that they could get reservation in government services.

These included small changes to include castes which belonged to the OBC group but spelt their names differently in the list of other OBC castes so that they can be included for benefits like financial assistance from the National Backward Classes Finance and Development Corporation and central jobs.