(1) wp8312-11 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY BENCH AT AURANGABAD WRIT PETITION NO. 8312 OF 2011 1. Akole Taluka Education Society, Akole, Tq. Akole, Dist. Ahmednagar, through its Secretary Yashwant s/o Dashrath Abhale, R/o Kolhar Ghoti Road, Opp. Agasti Vidyalaya, Akole, Tq. Akole, Dist. Ahmednagar. 2. Akole Taluka Education Society's Technical Campus, Akole, Tq. Akole, Dist. Ahmednagar, through its Director PETITIONERS VERSUS 1. All India Council for Technical Education, 7th Floor, Chandralok Building, Janpath, New Delhi, through its President. 2. The State of Maharashtra, through its Principal Secretary, Higher and Technical Education Department, Mantralaya, Mumbai. 3. The Director of Technical Education, Mahapalika Marg, Mumbai. 4. The Maharashtra State Board of Technical Education, 49, Kherwadi, Ali Aawarjung Marg, Bandra, Mumbai, through its Secretary. 5. The Union of India, through its Principal Secretary, Ministry of Human Resource Department, New Delhi RESPONDENTS (2) wp8312-11 .... Mr. R.N. Dhorde, advocate with Mr. V.R. Dhorde, advocate for the petitioners. Mr. Alok Sharma, Assistant Solicitor General for Respondent Nos. 1 and 5. Mr. S.K. Tambe, A.G.P. for Respondent Nos. 2 and 3. Mr. S.S. Jadhavar, advocate for Respondent No. 4. .... CORAM : B.R. GAVAI AND M.T. JOSHI, JJ. DATE OF JUDGEMENT RESERVED : 15th DECEMBER, 2011 DATE OF JUDGEMENT PRONOUNCED: 10th JANUARY, 2012 JUDGEMENT : (PER : M.T. JOSHI, J.) : 1. Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith and heard finally, by consent. 2. By the present petition, the petitioners pray that the letter dated 16th September, 2011, issued by the Respondent No. 1 - A.I.C.T.E., to the extent of not granting approval to the four Diploma Courses with respect to intake capacity in the Petitioner No. 2 - College for the academic year 2011-2012, be declared as illegal and accordingly, it be quashed and set aside. 3. The petitioners besides the courses of M.B.A. and M.C.A., had moved the concerned (3) wp8312-11 authorities for grant of recognition and approval from the respective respondents for Diploma Courses as below. Sr.No. Name of Course Intake Capacity 01. Mechanical Engineering 120 02. Civil Engineering 60 03. Computer Engineering 60 04. Electronics and 60 Telecommunication Engineering According to the petitioners, as for the academic year 2011-2012, it was not sure that the infrastructure for the above four Diploma Courses would be ready, before the Expert Visiting Committee, it showed its disinclination to start all the four courses. According to the petitioners, almost all infrastructure was ready for first year course of all the four courses. However, out of anxiety that the complete infrastructure may not be ready, the said disinclination was shown. The respondent No. 1, however, granted approval on its official Website on 30th June, 2011 to all the four Diploma Courses with intake capacity as detailed above. (4) wp8312-11 4. Thereafter, as per the direction of respondent No. 1 - A.I.C.T.E., the security deposit of Rs. 45 lacs was also deposited. Thereupon, the affiliation was granted by the Respondent No. 3 on 13th July, 2011. For that purpose, a Fixed Deposit Receipt of Rs. six lacs was also deposited. A Code Number 5385 was issued to the petitioners and accordingly, the petitioners' Institute was included for Centralized Admission Process and even the students are admitted. 5. On 22nd August, 2011, the Respondent No. 1 - A.I.C.T.E. in its official Web-Portal, however, showed Zero Seats as against the said four Diploma Courses. Therefore, the petitioners sent an application by fax to the Respondent No.1 requesting to rectify the said technical error. In fact, the Respondent No. 4 Board had also issued a letter dated 29th August, 2011 allotting Code Number 1554 to the petitioners for further correspondence with the Board and affiliation was also granted by the Respondent No. 4 in favour of the petitioners. Lastly on 30th (5) wp8312-11 August, 2011, the Respondent No. 1 - A.I.C.T.E. informed the Respondent No. 2 - State Government, stating that it had granted approval for the academic year 2011-2012 for conducting the M.B.A. and M.C.A. courses. The approval, however, was not extended for the four Diploma Courses. It was also stated in the said letter that the Institution can rectify the defects by generating the deficiency report through Web-Portal, if any, before 30th September, 2011. Accordingly, the petitioners have submitted the report on 27th September, 2011. Now, in all 219 students are admitted for four Diploma Courses by accepting necessary admission fees and the college has also started from 16th September, 2011. Even examination forms of the students have been filled in and submitted the same to the Respondent No. 4 Board and the examinations are to be conducted now as per the calender of the Respondent No. 4 Board. 6. The petitioners further submitted that suddenly on 27th September, 2011, though they received a letter of approval dated 16th September, 2011 from the Respondent No.1 - A.I.C.T.E. only (6) wp8312-11 regarding M.B.A. and M.C.A. courses, the said letter showed intake capacity for four Diploma Courses as Zero. Thus, vide its approval dated 16th September, 2011, the approval granted earlier is revoked. In the circumstances, the petitioners contend that the act of the Respondent No. 1 in revoking the approval midterm is not only arbitrary but also against the provisions of Approval Process Handbook, which requires an opportunity of hearing to be given before revocation of any such approval. 7. The Respondent No. 1 - A.I.C.T.E., in short, came with a case that only due to technical error in the computer, it had wrongly displayed on the Web- Portal that the petitioners had been granted approval for running the four Diploma Courses. The petitioners were very well aware of the fact that the approval for four Diploma Courses would not be granted as they themselves had shown disinclination for starting the same. According to the Respondent No. 1 - A.I.C.T.E., now the petitioners are taking undue advantage of the mistake occurred and hence, learned Assistant Solicitor General on behalf of (7) wp8312-11 Respondent No. 1 prayed for dismissal of the petition. 8. Heard learned counsel for the parties. 9. It is an admitted fact that on the basis of the publication on the Official Website of granting approval to the four Diploma Courses in the petitioner-Institution, the Respondent No. 2 - State of Maharashtra has not only granted approval but even affiliation is granted to the petitioner Institution and in Common Admission Process, large number of students were admitted. In view of this fact, a query was put to Mr. Alok Sharma, the learned Assistant Solicitor General, as to whether the students can be accommodated at any other Institution duly approved by the Respondent No.1. Mr. Sharma, however, showed ignorance about availability of any such alternative arrangement. Though the petitioners now claim that as they are having all the infrastructure available, now they are ready for starting and conducting the four Diploma Courses, it is not necessary to go into that aspect as it is the (8) wp8312-11 job of the Expert Visiting Committee to find out as to whether the infrastructure as is necessary for those four Diploma Courses is available. It is sufficient to note that for the present academic year, the students have already been admitted and they cannot be left in a lurch midterm. 10. In Writ Petition No. 9039/2011, a Division Bench of this Court at Principal Seat at Bombay, inter alia was considering the similar problem i.e. grant of approval by the Respondent No. 1 - A.I.C.T.E. to the petitioner therein, namely, Shri Balaji Society, due to technical error. Taking into consideration all the relevant facts in the said case, the Writ Petition was allowed. Here in the present case, since the students are already admitted and since there is no other alternate arrangement for accommodating them in any other Institution and as an opportunity of being heard was not given to the petitioners, in our view, the impugned letter dated 16th September, 2011, to the extent of not granting approval to the four Diploma Courses with respective intake capacity is liable to be quashed and set (9) wp8312-11 aside. 11. Accordingly, the letter dated 16th September, 2011, issued by the Respondent No. 1, to that extent is quashed and set aside. The Respondent No.1 - A.I.C.T.E. is directed to issue letter of approval for four Diploma Courses in the petitioner No. 2 College, for the present academic year 2011-2012 with respective intake capacity. The further course of action as regards granting approval for fresh admissions of the students to those four Diploma Course in the petitioner No. 2 College from the next academic year would be subject to the applicable Rules and Regulations. The petition is, therefore, partly allowed. The Rule is made absolute in the above terms with no order as to costs. [M.T. JOSHI, J.] [B.R. GAVAI, J.] NPJ/wp8312-11