1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION WRIT PETITION NO.5981 OF 2008 The Adarsh Shikshan Prasarak Mandal, ) through its administrative officer, ) Shivanad M Patil C/o.Bhosle High School) Tambri Vibag, Osmanabad-413501. ).. Petitioner Opp.Party No.1. Versus 1. State of Maharashtra, ) through the Department of ) Higher and Technical Education, ) Mantralaya, madam Cama Road, ) Mumbai – 400 032. ) 2. Directorate of Technical Education) Western Regional Office, ) 2nd Floor, Industrial Assurance ) Building, V.N. Road, ) Opp. Churchgate Rly Station, ) Churchgate, Mumbai 400 020. ).. Respondents -- Shri Yadu Bhargavan i/by M/s.R.Bhargavan & Associates for the Petitioner. Shri V.S. Masurkar, GP for the Respondent No.1. Ms Beena Menon for the Respondent No.2. -- 2 CORAM : SWATANTER KUMAR, CJ & A.P. DESHPANDE, J JUDGMENT RESERVED ON 25TH AUGUST, 2008. JUDGMENT PRONOUNCED ON 25TH SEPTEMBER, 2008. JUDGMENT: ( PER SWATANTER KUMAR, C.J.) 1. The Petitioner, a charitable society, is running various schools and colleges offering courses including Bachelors in Pharmacy, Bachelors in Education and Bachelors in Computer Science, etc. It is also running certain diploma courses including Diploma in Pharmacy. The Petitioner claims that it has done good work in education and has achieved various landmarks in imparting education field with an intention to help underprivileged class of students and to provide them professional and technical education courses, and it built an Engineering College in Osmanabad. The Petitioner applied to the All India Council of Technical Education at its Western Regional Office, Mumbai, for approval to enable commencement of the courses in Engineering College on 30th 3 January, 2007 which was a cut off date for submission of applications for Academic Year 2008-09. Pursuant to the said application and regular follow up, the Petitioner claims to have received a Letter of Intent dated 18th March, 2008 from the Council. The Engineering College was to comply with the requirements stated in the said letter. Various infrastructural requirements were also to be complied with and fulfilled by the College before grant of approval for commencement of the courses. Copies of the letter were also sent to the Department of Technical Education, Mantralaya, Mumbai, Maharashtra. The college went forward with staffing and equipping the said Engineering College. It is averred by the Petitioner that over and above its land and building cost of Rs.4 crores, it had incurred a further expenditure of Rs.1 crore to adequately equip the college. It is averred that the said costs however do not include the recurring cost of maintaining the entire teaching staff and principal. The Petitioner vide its letter dated 19th June, 2008 enclosed a fixed deposit receipt of Rs.35,00,000/- (Rupees Thirty Five Lakhs ) made at the State Bank of India, 4 Osmanabad Branch jointly in the names of the Regional Officer, All India Council of Technical Education and the petitioners and had given an undertaking to the effect that it shall abide all the rules and regulations of the Council from time to time and also made a demand draft of Rs.50,000/- in favour of the Council. These are the requisites for conducting inspection of the petitioner college. The said letter dated 19th June, 2008 was delivered to the Mumbai office of the Council. 2. In furtherance to the request made by the petitioner, the Western Regional Office of the Council sent the submissions by the petitioner vide its letter dated 20th June, 2008 to its Head Quarters at New Delhi. The Inspection Committee visited the premises of the college at Osmanabad on 28th June, 2008. During the inspection, the Inspection Committee noticed certain non-compliances, vis-a-vis the workshop of the engineering college and certain other matters, and it instructed the petitioner to make up those deficiencies. The Committee further informed the petitioners that it could avail of 5 reconsideration opportunity once the requirements were fully and satisfactorily complied with. According to the Petitioner, it was surprised with the said report and made an application for re- inspection on 1st July, 2008 and submitted a demand draft for an amount of Rs.40,000/- to enable such inspection. Again the Inspection Committee visited the premises on 8th July, 2008 and vide letter dated 14th July, 2008, the college was communicated that the Inspection Committee had raised some objections regarding the toilets, labs, doors and windows and the principal's room. The Petitioner again made application for inspection. Pursuant to the re- inspection, i.e. The third Inspection, the Inspection Committee issued approval to the petitioner for its engineering college vide its letter dated 24th July, 2008. The said approval was as per the regulations notified by the Respondent No.2 dated 4th September, 2006. This approval permits the Petitioner to conduct the courses in electrical, mechanical, electronics, telecommunications and computer engineering with a permissible total intake of 240 students has been set out and the courses were expected to begin within two 6 years from the date of approval. This approval was further subject to the permission from the affiliating University/Board, and obviously, the Directorate of Technical Education, State of Maharashtra for commencement of the courses. 3. Vide letter dated 24th July, 2008, the petitioners requested the State of Maharashtra to include the name of their engineering college to enable them to admit students under the centralised admission process and also local under-privileged students seeking admissions under the petitioner society's reserved quota. A number of students have to be allocated the seats for the engineering colleges and as no response was received from the Director Technical Education and University, the petitioner even without approaching the said authorities filed the present writ petition for the following reliefs: “(a) That this Hon'ble Court be pleased to issue a writ of mandamus or any other appropriate writ in direction or order under Article 226 of the Constitution of India direction to the respondent No.1 and 2 to allow the petitioners to take part 7 in the admission process and admit students and conduct courses during the present academic year of 2008-2009, based on the letter of approval issued by the second respondent counsel – AICTE. (b) This Hon' ble Court be pleased to direct the 1st respondent to include the name of the petitioners engineering college in the advertisement, website and option form, and be further pleased to direct the 1st respondent to admit students in the petitioner college under the centralized admission process.” 4. While opposing to grant of reliefs to these petitioners, reply affidavit on behalf of the Respondent No.1-State of Maharashtra, Directorate of Technical Education, has been filed. While referring to the various terms and conditions of approval, it is argued that the college is not entitled to either in law or facts to admit a single student during the current Academic Year 2008-2009 as the approval will be operative for the next Academic Year 2009- 2010. Relying upon the Notification dated 9th June, 2008, Exhibit-A to the Reply, it is stated that in the list of colleges, the name of Petitioner college was not notified and 30th June, 2008 being the cut 8 off date, neither any admission can be granted nor their name can be notified in the list of colleges which are permitted to commence the courses and entitled to admit students from the centralised councilling. It is stated that the approval was granted subject fulfillment of the conditions specified in the letter of approval. There is nothing on record to show that the said conditions have been satisfied. The Condition No.2(c) of the approval reads as under:- “2(c) that the admissions to the courses shall be made only after the affiliating university/State Board has given permission to start the course.” The permission to grant the course has not been granted either by the affiliating university or by the Directorate of Technical Education. In addition to the above, the following reasons are set out as under. “In short, I say that the Petitioner Institution does not have affiliation and therefore, it is just not possible to 9 permit the Petitioner to admit even a single student at its institution/college. It is worthwhile to note that in the advertisement given AICTE on 24/09/2007 vide Advt. No. AICTE/Legal/09(04)/2007, it is clearly mentioned in category -I under serial no.4 of “APPLICATIONS FOR ESTABLISHMENT OF NEW INSTITUTIONS FOR TECHNICAL PROGRAMMES” such as “The letter of Approval issued after 30th June shall not be valid for the current academic years.” The AICTE has issued the Letter of Approval (LOA) to the Petitioner's Institute vide letter dated 24/07/2008 which is already annexed at page no.39 of the petition. Therefore the Petitioner's Institute is not valid for the current academic year i.e. 2008-2009 but shall be valid only for next two Academic years.” 5. Rejoinder affidavit was filed by the Petitioner averring that some other college has been granted permission to take up the seats even after the expiry of a cut off date of 30th June, 2008. All India Council for Technical Education has not filed any independent reply but by adopting the reply of the State has vehemently opposed grant of relief to the petitioner college. On behalf of both the respondents, it is reasserted that in some cases certain interim directions were passed by the Court for grant of permission to commence admission to the students but in view of the Full Bench 10 Judgment of this Court, an application for review has been filed and notified policy and statutory instructions in regard to cut of date are being strictly adhered to. 6. At the outset, we may notice that there is not a word in the writ petition that the petitioner college is affiliated to any university and has been allowed commencement of the technical courses in the petitioner college. In fact, the University has not even been impleaded as a party respondent to the present petition. 7. Be that as it may, it is clear that the AICTE has notified, in exercise of its statutory power, 30th June, 2008 as a cut off date for grant of approval to the colleges which are to commence their academic courses of 2008-2009. Approvals granted thereafter are to be followed only for the subsequent academic year. In the present case, admittedly, even the first inspection was conducted on 28th June, 2008 and the Committee had raised certain objections and found that the conditions of the Letter of Intent had not been 11 satisfied. The second inspection of the petitioner college was conducted on 8th July, 2008 and again the Inspection Committee noticed deficiencies in the college. In other words, even as late as on 8th July, 2008, the college was not fully equipped and was not possessed of the requisite infrastructure to maintain the academic standard. Once the deficiencies were noticed, then there was no question of grant of approval for that year i.e. 2008-2009. Even after the letter of approval was issued on 24th July, 2008, still the conditions were to be complied with and there is no record before us to show that the conditions of approval had been complied with to the satisfaction of the Council and other authorities. Thereafter, the petitioner has not even cared to approach the University and Director of Technical Education for grant of permission to commence the courses. We hardly see any justification in the conduct of the petitioner in not even approaching the said authorities and satisfying them that the college is capable of implementing the approval granted by the Technical Council. 12 8. It is further interesting to note that the letter dated 24th July, 2008 had clearly stated that the Petitioner college was required to submit compliance report as per AICTE requirements by 31st August, 2008. Now even that period has elapsed and there is nothing on record, not even an averment made in the petition, that the said compliance has been made by the college and the college has satisfied various requirements in relation to the infrastructure academic standard, building, etc. 9. A Full Bench Judgment of this Court in fact is a complete answer to the various contentions raised on behalf of the petitioner that they ought to be granted reliefs as prayed for. The question of prejudice and comparative hardship has also been raised during the course of argument which has been squarely dealt with by the Full Bench Judgment of this Court delivered on 22nd August, 2008 in Writ Petition No.8847 of 2007 (The Mahatma Gandhi Missions Institute v. State of Maharashtra). It cannot be disputed that on the application of principle of ratio deci dendi, the said Judgment of Full 13 Bench Judgment of this Court is squarely applicable to the present case. In any case, we are bound by the decision of the Full Bench which in fact is even otherwise concurrent for the reasons and law recorded in the judgment. 10. For the reasons aforesaid, we find no merit in the petition. The same is dismissed without any order of costs. We further make it clear that this would not affect in any way the request of the petitioner college for grant of approval and commencement of courses for the Academic year 2009-2010. CHIEF JUSTICE A.P. DESHPANDE, J