Bengaluru: The Department of Primary and Secondary Education has withdrawn the Karnataka Educational Institutions (Recognition of Minority Educational Institutions Terms and Conditions) draft rules, which stated that a minority educational institution needs to have 25% students from any religious or linguistic minority community. The earlier rules, which required a school to have 25% of the total number of students in an academic year belonging to a particular religious or linguistic minority community, will prevail.

The draft rules issued last month have been withdrawn from the official gazette with immediate effect as there were procedural lapses while issuing it. A senior Minister in the Cabinet had taken exception to the draft rules, said sources. “It was issued even though it was under consideration by the Cabinet subcommittee. The matter was also pursued by the Chief Secretary who took officials of the Education Department to task,” a source said.

After the Cabinet opposed this, the model code of conduct came into place, so the permission to withdraw it was sent to the State Election Commission, after which it was withdrawn. The move has been welcomed by managements of minority institutions as well as educationalists who had felt the draft rules, if implemented, would have “helped several schools escape” from reserving 25 per cent of their seats for students from weaker and disadvantaged backgrounds under the RTE Act.