Dr. R.N. Gupta Technical ... vs Government Of Delhi
2006 Latest Caselaw 866 Del

JUDGMENT

Pradeep Nandrajog, J.

1. This appears to be the 8th writ petition filed by the first petitioner. Second petitioner is stated to be an institute of higher education established by the first petitioner to impart knowledge in pharmacy and science to students. For record, second petitioner is Aditya College of Pharmacy & Medicine. Case set up by the petitioners is that the first petitioner was established as a society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 by Shri D.K. Gupta. First petitioner claims to be a pioneer society imparting higher education in the field of medicine and management. Being desirous of setting up a college of pharmacy in Delhi, first petitioner claims to have established the second petitioner. Second petitioner approached DDA for allotment of land in 1998. It also sought permission from AICTE to set up a pharmacy college. Requisite permission was accorded by AICTE on 18.11.1998 but on the terms and conditions stipulated herein. Institute commenced its activity from a private site. Needless to state, terms and conditions of recognition required the minimum standards to be adhered to as and when the college of pharmacy was established.

2. In April,1999, Land Allotment Committee of DDA, considering the petitioners application as also others, took a decision to allot plot No. 2, Pocket-II, Sector-B, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi admeasuring 1850 sq.meters to the second petitioner. On 11.10.1999, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University granted affiliation to the second petitioner for intake of 30 students for the B-Pharma degree course of the university. Affiliation was stated to be provisional. It was directed that the institute would shift to a permanent site.

3. DDA did not make the necessary allotment for the reason, it noted that petitioner did not have the requisite sponsorship.

4. Since the second petitioner was seeking Nazul land under Rule 5 of Delhi Development Authority (Disposal of Developed Nazul Land Rules, 1981, DDA required second petitioner to have the requisite sponsorship from the Government of NCT of Delhi.

5. Petitioners filed a writ petition in this Court which was registered as WP(C) No. 3694/2000. Vide judgment and order dated 18.12.2002, writ petition was dismissed holding that till petitioners did not obtain the necessary sponsorship from the State Government in compliance with Rule 20(e) of the Nazul Land Rules, allotment could not be made.

6. Petitioners took up the issue of sponsorship with the Department of Training & Education, Govt. of NCT of Delhi. On 12.1.2004, impugned order was passed rejecting the sponsorship. Following are the reasons for refusing sponsorship:

(i) The society was allowed to provisionally run a B-Pharma course with an in take of 30 students w.e.f. session 1999-2000. While granting provisional affiliation GGSIP University vide its letter dated 11.10.1999 had inter alia, laid down the conditions that the institute will shift to its permanent site within a period of one year. The society failed to fulfilll this condition.

(ii) The Department of Training & Technical Education vide their letter No. 196/27/land/97-98/DDTE/2303 dated 7.8.2000 sought certain information from the Principal, Aditya Institute of Technology to process their application for sponsorship of land. The society did not bother to furnish complete information. Accordingly, the sponsorship request of the society for allotment of land from the Govt. of Delhi which is mandatory could not be made.

(iii) A committee under the Chairmanship of Prof. P.N. Srivastava, Ex. Vice Chancellor, JNU, New Delhi visited the institute on 27.4.2000 to monitor and evaluate the academic functioning of the institute. The committee found the faculty including the Principal inadequate, the infrastructure in terms of lab, classrooms, library, equipment of poorest quality and the campus congested. The institute was advised to remove the deficiencies but when a subsequent visit was made on 27.6.2000 by a committee consisting of Prof. S.S. Agarwal, Principal, College of Pharmacy, New Delhi Prof. R. Zafar, Head of Department of Pharmacequosy Hamdard University, Dr. A.A. Siddique, Reader Hamdard University, Dr. N.P. Biswas, Additional Professor, AIIMS and Shri Dalip Kumar, Deputy Registrar, I.P. University, the situation of lack of space, lack of faculty, poor condition of labs still persisted and the committee recommended that the college may not be allowed to admit students during the session 2000-2001. In the meanwhile, the situation turned so ugly with the protest by the students and parents that the admitted batch of students had to be shifted to College of Pharmacy under Govt. of Delhi. Thereafter, no admission was made for the course w.e.f. 2000 as the society was unsuccessful in running the course.

(iv) The situation in other diploma courses being run by the society has been no better Pharmacy Council of India, not satisfied with the running of diploma course in Pharmacy withdrew the recognition affecting the career of large number of students. The intake in the disciplines of Electronics, Computer Engg. Medical Lab. Technology had to be reduced. For academic session 2003-2004, the State Level Committee of the Government of Delhi had to stop admissions to the Computer Engg. Course on account of deficiency in the matter of faculty, equipment, Computer and space norms of AICTE. In fact the society was allowed to run these courses since 1995 under the condition that these courses will be shifted to the permanent site but the society has not bothered to construct a building even though DDA had long back allotted land to the society for this purpose. The present premises are not at all suitable to run the courses.

7. Petitioners questioned the order impugned by predicating a stand that the issue of entitlement to run a degree course and the academic proficiency of the second petitioner could not be decided by any authority save and except the AICTE. It was urged that AICTE being constituted under a Central Legislation, all other state provisions relating to the grant of approval or relating to entitlement to establish an institute of technical education would be void.

8. At the hearing, learned Counsel for the petitioner, Shri Aseem Mehrotra, relied upon the decision reported as , State of T.N. v. Adhiyaman Educational & Research Institute, which was followed by the Supreme Court in the decision reported as (2000) 5 SCC 23, Jaya Gokul Educational Trust v. Commissioner & Secretary to Govt. Higher Education Departemnt, Thiruvanathapuram, Kerala State and Anr.

9. The decisions referred to by the learned Counsel for the petitioners note the enactment of All India Council for Technical Education Act, 1987 by the Parliament. The decisions note Entry No. 66 of List 1 i.e. the Union List of 7th Schedule. The decisions note Entry 11 of List II i.e. State List and Entry No. 25 of List III i.e. the Concurrent List.

10. The decisions note that vide Entry 66 of List 1 of the 7th Schedule, coordination and determination of standards in institutions for higher education or research and scientific and technical institutions have always remained the special preserve of the Parliament. The decisions note Articles 246, 248 and 254 of the Constitution of India. They further note that the AICTE Act was enacted with a view to have proper planning and coordinated development of technical education system throughout the country by promoting qualitative improvement of such technical as also to have a planned quantitative growth. The decisions note that the Central Act has occupied the field pertaining to maintenance of norms and standards in technical educational institutes. The decisions note that the Central Act regulates the conditions as per which technical institutions have to be recognized. The decisions note that if there is a conflict or overlapping between the Central Act or a State Enactment, the former shall prevail over the latter.

11. Notwithstanding justification by the Government of NCT of Delhi that it had the power to determine deficiencies in the teeth of approval granted by AICTE, a stand which cannot be accepted, petition must fail on account of the stand adopted by AICTE which was imp leaded as respondent No. 2.

12. In paras 4 to 12, AICTE has inter alia informed as under:

a) First petitioner established two institutions, namely, Aditya Institute of Technology and Aditya College of Pharmacy & Science. Qua Aditya College of pharmacy & science, AICTE granted approval to run the institute with intake of 60 seats. Students were permitted to be admitted for academic year 1995-96.

b) Initial approval was extended for the academic year 1998-99.

c) The College of Pharmacy & Science commenced imparting education from a temporary building. Deficiencies were noted. Approval was not extended to continue with the course in medical and laboratory technology for the academic year 2001-02. Qua the diploma in pharmacy it is stated that approval was granted for the said year but with a reduced intake of 30 seats.

d) Petitioners filed WP(C) No. 4264/01 challenging the decision of AICTE to reduce the seats intake. Said petition was disposed vide order dated 15.1.2002 with a direction to reconsider the matter.

e) A four member committee was constituted which, vide letter dated 3.4.2002, notified various deficiencies. Notwithstanding said findings, on 13.8.2002 permission was granted to conduct course for said academic year in pharmacy and medical lab technology courses but with a reduced student intake of 40 and 30 students respectively for the two courses.

f) Petitioners filed another writ petition being WP(C) No. 2801/2002 praying that the student intake should be 60 students. The said petition was dismissed.

g) That another writ petition being WP(C) No. 4156/2003 was filed on the basis of some stated verbal communications pertaining to student intake. The said writ petition was also dismissed.

h) In para 12 of the counter affidavit, it has been averred as under:

12. So far as the second institution established by the petitioner society, namely, Aditya College of Pharmacy & Science is concerned, the AICTE/respondent No. 2 herein accorded permission to the petitioner herein for starting B-Pharma Degree course for the academic session 1999-2000 and 2000-2001 and also granted extension of approval with intake capacity of 30 students. It is submitted that the Expert Committee found serious deficiencies and non-compliance of the Norms and Standards of AICTE by the petitioner society inspite of repeated opportunities. Therefore, the Council has passed an order keeping the petitioner institute under 'No Admission Category' during 2000-2001. The students already admitted in the petitioner college were shifted to the Government College of Pharmacy. It is further submitted that since the petitioner/society did not comply the deficiencies inspite of several opportunities, the Council based on the reports of the Experts Committee and the concerned Committee decided to withhold fresh admissions in the petitioner institution during the academic session 2002-2003 and accordingly letter dated 4.7.2002 kept the petitioner institute under no admission category. It was further submitted that the respondent herein vide letter bearing F. No. 765-61-025(E)/ET/99 dated 1.72003 put the petitioner No. 2 institution under 'no admission category' for the year 2003-2004. In the said letter, the AICTE rejected the representation dated 14.1.2003 of the institution after granting an opportunity of hearing to the institution before the Hearing Committee on 30.5.2003 in compliance of the directions of the Hon'ble High Court in CWP. No. 2716 of 2003 and CM. No. 4588 of 2003. Based on the observations of the Hearing Committee and after careful examination of the representation dated 14.1.2003 of the institution, it has been decided by the Council to reject the same by the aforesaid letter dated 1.7.2003 in the light of the deficiencies and further put the institution under 'No Admission Category' and instructed the institution not to make any admission of students w.e.f. the academic year 2003-2004. That the above petitioner filed a writ petition bearing WP. No. 5368 of 2003 in this Hon'ble Court challenging the order dated 1.7.2003 and seeking for a direction to the AICTE to grant approval for conducting B-Pharmacy course for the academic session 2003-2004. The answering respondent strongly opposed the above writ petition contending that the said petition shall be liable to be dismissed since the earlier writ petition being Writ Petition No. 4716 of 2001 filed by the petitioner institute seeking for same/similar relief was dismissed by this Hon'ble Court consisting of Hon'ble Mr. Justice C.K. Mahajan by order dated 4.3.2003. The Appeal being LPA. No. 333 of 2003 filed by the petitioner herein society against the said order dated 4.3.2003 of the learned Single Judge was not admitted and disposed of on 9.7.2003 by the Division Bench of this Hon'ble Court, consisting of Hon'ble the Chief Justice and Hon'ble Mr. Justice A.K. Sikri. It was further contended by the AICTE that the petitioner society deliberately violated the provisions of AICTE Regulations and the Norms and Standards and, therefore, the petitioner society was not entitled for any relief from this Hon'ble Court until such time all such deficiencies as pointed out by the answering respondent are complied. That the petitioner society or its institutions have earlier also filed several writ petitions in this Hon'ble Court seeking similar reliefs without complying the deficiencies and the Standards and Norms of the All India Council for Technical Education and the said writ petitions were dismissed/disposed of by this Hon'ble Court. It was also submitted that the petitioner institute failed to shift to its permanent site inspite of repeated opportunities. But on the contrary, the petitioner society claimed that it could shift to a permanent site only if the students were allotted to its college. It is submitted that the above proposal was not acceptable to the AICTE as there was no such provision in the AICTE Regulations. The above writ petition was listed for hearing on 28.11.2003 before the Hon'ble Court. During the course of arguments, the counsel for the petitioner confined for a relief, that an inspection of the petitioner premises be carried out by AICTE and the AICTE should take a decision based on the report. This Hon'ble Court by the order dated 28.11.2003 disposed of the writ petition observing that the relief prayed by the petitioner is an innocuous relief and will certainly assist in bringing out the true picture and accordingly disposed of the writ petition with a direction that, the inspection be carried out by the AICTE within 6 weeks from the date of passing of the order and the report be laid before the AICTE for consideration within two weeks thereafter by which time the decision should be taken.

13. In respect of the directions issued on 28.11.2003, reference whereof has been made in para 12 of the reply filed by AICTE, it is stated that petitioners refused to deposit inspection fee. Inspection was not carried out. Petitioners filed CCP. No. 69/2004 alleging violation of order dated 28.11.2003. CCP was dismissed as AICTE was held not to be in contempt. AICTE filed CM. No. 5368/2003 seeking a clarification, whether order dated 28.11.2003 had to be complied with without petitioners paying the inspection fee. On 14.7.2004 CM. No. 212/2004 was disposed of directing petitioners to deposit Rs. 40,000/- with AICTE.

14. In para 14 of the counter affidavit filed, AICTE has stated that petitioners did not deposit the requisite inspection fee and hence inspection could not be conducted.

15. It is obvious that AICTE has not continued with the approval granted to the petitioners. The inevitable consequence is that the petitioners cannot enforce any claim predicated on the ground that AICTE has granted approval and has certified the petitioners as qualified for imparting education in pharmacy and science. Question of this Court considering any hiatus between the inspection conducted by Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University or the Department of Technical Education, Government of NCT of Delhi viz-a-viz inspection conducted by AICTE does not arise.

16. The position as of today is that the petitioners do not hold any certificate issued by AICTE permitting petitioners to conduct a degree/diploma course in pharmacy or science.

17. It is not in dispute that the petitioners are not imparting any education leading to a degree or diploma in B-Pharma. It is not in dispute that the students who were inducted for the four year course have been absorbed in other institutes affiliated to Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University.

18. For the reason AICTE has not continued with the approval granted to the petitioners and found serious deficiencies in the institute established by the petitioners I find no merits in the petition.

19. Petition is accordingly dismissed.

20. No costs.