ALL INDIA COUNCIL FOR TECHNICAL EDUCATION Vs. SHRI PRINCE SHIVAJI MARATHA BOARDING HOUSES COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Delay condoned in SLP(C)No.17005 of 2016 and SLP(C)No.17006 of 2016. Leave is granted in all the six petitions for special leave to appeal.

(2.) This set of appeals mainly involves the question as to whether the mandate of the Council of Architecture (CoA) or that of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) would prevail on the question of granting approval and related matters to an institution for conducting architectural education course, if there is any contradiction in the opinions of these two bodies. Both of them are regulatory bodies constituted by Parliamentary legislations having power to approve or recognize and thereafter monitor working of such an institution.

(3.) The CoA owes its origin to the provisions of Section 3 of the Architects Act, 1972 (the 1972 Act). AICTE has also been constituted under the provisions of Section 3 of the All India Council of Technical Education Act, 1987 (the 1987 Act). As the preambles of these two statutes suggest, the former has been enacted to provide for registration of Architects and for matters connected therewith. The object of the latter statute is to provide for a Council with a view to proper planning and coordinated development of the technical education system throughout the country, promotion of qualitative improvements of such education in relation to planned quantitative growth and the regulation and proper maintenance of norms and standards in the technical education system and for matters connected therewith. Section 2(g) of the 1987 Act stipulates:-