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2014 DIGILAW 603 (CAL)

National Council for Teachers' Education v. Sk. Ataul Haque

2014-07-08

ISHAN CHANDRA DAS, JYOTIRMAY BHATTACHARYA

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Judgment : The writ petitioner wanted to establish a B.Ed. College in West Bengal. The petitioner claims that all infrastructural and institutional facilities which are required to be fulfilled by the petitioner for obtaining recognition from NCTE have already been completed. While processing the petitioner's application for grant of recognition, inspection was held by the vigilance team on 4th February, 2012. In course of such inspection, some deficiencies in the infrastructural and/or institutional facilities were detected by the vigilance team. Those infrastructural and/or institutional deficiencies were brought to the notice of the college authorities by a letter written by the concerned authority of National Council for Teachers' Education, Eastern Regional Committee, on 21st February, 2012. These are the following deficiencies which were pointed out to the writ petitioners : a) Video CD not prepared at the time of inspection. b) Institution building is under construction. c) Science lab, Psychology lab, ET lab and language learning lab not available. d) Library is under construction, e) Power, water not connected. f) Furniture, teaching aid etc. not suitable. g) No material, books, equipment has been purchased. The petitioners were called upon to submit a written representation on the said report of the vigilance inspection team. In reply to the said letter of the N.C.T.E., the petitioner submitted a representation to the concerned authority on 13th December, 2012 explaining the reason as to why proper arrangement could not be made by the college authority to satisfy the vigilance team in course of such inspection, as to the availability of the infrastructural and/or institutional facilities at the proposed college site. It was also mentioned therein that since no prior notice of holding such inspection was intimated to the petitioner, no arrangement could be made by the petitioner to satisfy the inspection team about completion of infrastructural facilities, at the proposed site. Be that as it may, the petitioner herein stated in the writ petition that he has completed all infrastructural and/or institutional facilities by 10th December, 2012. Admittedly, no physical verification was made by the vigilance team of N.C.T.E. after 10th of December, 2012. Even the concerned authority rejected the petitioner's application for recognition for lack of infrastructural and/or institutional facilities by its order dated 14th December, 2012 without even holding any further inspection at the site after receipt of the reply to the show-cause notice from the writ petitioner. Even the concerned authority rejected the petitioner's application for recognition for lack of infrastructural and/or institutional facilities by its order dated 14th December, 2012 without even holding any further inspection at the site after receipt of the reply to the show-cause notice from the writ petitioner. In the aforesaid context, the Learned Trial Judge by the impugned order passed on 11th February, 2014 held that physical inspection of the site is necessary. The Learned Trial Judge also held that since rejection order was passed by the N.C.T.E. on 14th December, 2012 without holding any physical inspection at the site, the rejection order cannot be sustained. Ms. Gutgutia, Learned Advocate, appearing for the appellant submits that prior notice was served upon the petitioner before holding inspection, but no material could be produced before us to show that such prior notice, in fact, was served upon the petitioner before holding such inspection. We do not find any apparent illegality in the impugned order as we find that even the first inspection which was held by the concerned authority was not done after service of prior notice upon the writ petitioner, as it was required under law. However, Ms. Gutgutia has drawn our attention to the order passed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court on 24th March, 2014 in writ petition being (C) No. 148 of 2014 wherein the Hon'ble Supreme Court passed an order suspending consideration of all pending applications for recognition until new regulations are framed. Time for framing of such new regulation was fixed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court upto June, 2014. Subsequently when it was brought to the notice of the Hon'ble Supreme Court that new regulation could not be framed as per the direction passed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the said order within the time allowed to the N.C.T.E., the Hon'ble Supreme Court by the subsequent order passed on 3rd July, 2014 in W.P. No. 2701 of 2008 extended the time for formulating such new regulation till November 30, 2014. In view of the aforesaid orders passed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court, we hold that the application for grant of recognition which was submitted by the petitioner at a point of time when the old regulation was in vogue, cannot now be considered as per the said regulation, as the petitioner's application is now required to be considered in the light of the new regulation to be framed by the N.C.T.E. in terms of the aforesaid orders of the Hon'ble Supreme Court. However, since we are of the view that the order passed by the N.C.T.E. on 14th December, 2012 rejecting the petitioner's application was not legal as such a decision, according to us, was taken by the concerned authority either by not following the regulation or by not holding a proper physical verification of the infrastructural and/or institutional facilities available at the site, after receipt of the reply to the show-cause from the petitioner, the impugned order of rejection of the petitioner's application for recognition passed by the Regional Director of N.C.T.E., Eastern Regional Committee, appearing at page 38 of the stay application stands quashed. Thus, we make it clear that the petitioner's application for grant of recognition should be treated as pending and the said application will be considered by the concerned authority after the new regulations are framed in terms of the order passed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court and the fate of the said application will be decided by the concerned authority afresh in the light of the new regulation to be framed by the concerned authority within a reasonable time after such new regulations are framed. We are informed by Ms. Gutgutia, Learned Advocate for the appellant, that after rejecting the petitioner's application for recognition, the petitioner's application for recognition was returned to the petitioner. Such submission of Ms. Gutgutia is disputed by Mr. Bhattacharya, learned Advocate for the respondent/writ petitioner. Be that as it may, even without entering into this part of the dispute, we make it clear that in the event the said application has already been returned to the petitioner, the said application should again be submitted by the petitioner to the concerned authority immediately and the concerned authority will also accept the same and process the same in terms of the direction passed by us hereinabove. The appeal and the application are thus disposed of with the above modification of the impugned order.