IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB & HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.5563 of 2011 Date of Decision : November 11, 2011. Lord Krishan Educational Society (Regd) .....Petitioner versus National Council for Teacher Education and another .....Respondents CORAM : HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE SURYA KANT. Present : Mr.Naresh Prabhakar, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr.Vinod S.Bhardwaj, Advocate, for the respondents. -.- 1. Whether Reporters of Local papers may be allowed to see the judgment? 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? --- Surya Kant, J. (Oral) One of the grievance of the petitioner-society is against the order dated 21.1.2011 (Annexure P-6) passed by the Vice Chairperson of the National Council for Teacher Education (for short the 'NCTE') whereby its statutory appeal under the National Council for Teacher Education Act (hereinafter referred to as the 'NCTE Act) has been dismissed being barred by limitation. I have heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the records. The petitioner-society applied for the recognition of College of Education established by it at Kapurthala, for Teachers Education Course. CWP No.5563 of 2011 [2] The recognition was refused by the Regional Director, Northern Regional Committee vide order dated 31.7.2009. The said order is appealable under the NCTE Act. The petitioner-society filed an appeal on 24.8.2010 and there was a delay of 60 days in filing thereof. The petitioner society moved an application for condonation of delay on the plea that the order dated 31.7.2009 was received by one of its clerk (Naveen Kumar) who misplaced its original copy and a second copy had to be re-arranged. It was explained that the son and son-in-law of the Chairman of the Society met with a serious road accident and both of them were kept in ICU for many months. The petitioner-society accordingly sought condonation of delay and admission of its appeal but the Vice Chairperson of NCTE declined the same after observing that the grounds of condonation of delay are not reasonable and unacceptable. In my considered view, the approach adopted by the Vice Chairperson was too hyper technical to be appreciated. The quasi-judicial authority should always make an endeavour to decide the matters on merits especially when no vested right has accrued in favour of the other party. The matter pertains to establishment of a College for Education subject to fulfillment of the conditions prescribed for recognition. It would have been appreciated if the Vice Chairperson had directed the verification of availability of the requisite infrastructure/facilities which the petitioner- society is mandatorily required to provide and then decide the appeal on merits. Even the judicial courts ordinarily condone the delay of 60 days, if explained bonafidely. CWP No.5563 of 2011 [3] For the reasons afore-stated, the writ petition is allowed in part. The impugned Appellate order dated 21.1.2011 is set-aside and the Vice Chairperson of the NCTE is directed to decide the petitioner's appeal afresh and in accordance with law preferably after getting a fresh inspection done with regard to availability of infrastructure/facilities etc. of the College. The appeal be decided within a period of three months from the date of receiving a certified copy of this order. Dasti. November 11, 2011 (SURYA KANT) Mohinder JUDGE