Lucknow, Aug. 1: Aligarh Muslim University has decided to open campuses in Bengal, Kerala and Bihar overriding criticism that the expansion could damage its status as a minority institute.

The university court, its highest governing body, cleared the proposal late last evening, removing the last hurdle in the way of the expansion.

Murshidabad in Bengal, Malappuram in Kerala and Kishanganj in Bihar will be the sites of the new campuses. “Now all technical formalities and some legal ones will be cleared at the earliest,” vice-chancellor P.K. Abdul Azis said in Aligarh today.

The court session, which lasted four hours, described the expansion decision as a “historic step”.

Although the proposal had been made early this year, it took months for the formal clearance to come from the university’s highest body because some AMU alumni leaders and professors feared the expansion would strike a blow to its minority status.

Their argument is that since the new campuses will come up on plots given by the states and not waqf land, the respective governments will have a say in their running. “The fears are unjustified and completely unwarranted,” Azis said, stressing the new centres would not diminish the importance of the Aligarh campus or take away its status.

In January 2006, Allahabad High Court had scrapped the university’s minority status and cancelled 50 per cent reservation for Muslims, but later the Supreme Court stayed the order and restored status quo. The issue of reservation for Muslims at AMU is pending before the apex court since.

A section of the university’s students feel the expansion is a fresh ploy to rob the institute of its minority status. The AMU Old Boys’ Association general secretary, Kokab Hamid, refuted Azis’s “optimism” and said the new campuses would certainly shift attention away from Aligarh and this would not be in the best interest of Muslim students.

Mohammad Adeeb, a Rajya Sabha member from the Samajwadi Party and president of the All-India Minority Coordination Board, said: “I am not against the idea of new educational centres and universities, but the new centres must benefit Muslims who are educationally... backward.”