The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights has written to the chief secretaries and administrators of all states and Union territories asking them to stop funding madrasas and madrasa boards, reported ANI on Saturday.

Priyank Kanoongo, chief of the child rights body, wrote in the letter: “It has been recommended that State funding to the Madrasas and Madrasa Boards be stopped across all States/Union territories and Madrasa Boards should be discontinued and closed down.”

Kanoongo also wrote that all children, Muslim or otherwise, should be enrolled in schools recognised under the Right to Education Act, 2009.

“The exemptions of religious institutions from the RTE Act 2009 led to the exclusion of children attending only religious institutions from the formal education system,” Kanoongo’s letter added. “What was intended to empower children ultimately created new layers of deprivation and discrimination due to wrong interpretation.”

The recommendations in Kanoongo’s letter are based on a report – Guardians of Faith or Oppressors of Rights: Constitutional Rights of Children vs Madrasas – prepared by the commission to assess the alleged role of madrasas in violating children’s right to education.

Kanoongo also urged states and Union territories to take steps to close down madrasa education boards, but clarified that a final decision in the matter would be subject to the ruling in a case pending before the Supreme Court.

In September, the child rights body told the Supreme Court that madrasas are “unsuitable or unfit” places for children to receive “proper education”. It also claimed that madrasas did not qualify as “schools” under the Right to Education Act.

This came in response to a plea challenging the Allahabad High Court’s March 22 decision to strike down the Uttar Pradesh Board of Madarsa Education Act, 2004, as unconstitutional.

The Uttar Pradesh Board of Madarsa Education Act regulated the functioning of madrasas in the state. The act was struck down on the grounds that it violated the Constitution’s principles of secularism and fundamental rights.

The High Court had also ordered the transfer of madrasa students to formal schools, but the Supreme Court stayed the decision in April.

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav criticised the child rights body’s recommendations and accused the state’s Bharatiya Janata Party government of trying to assert control over educational institutes.

“If they have a problem with education, they should have taken steps to improve the quality of education,” he said. “All institutions, whether it is madrasa or any other institution, if they had the power, they would have closed Sanskrit schools also. They want control, they want to keep everything under their control.”