MANAGER LOYOLA COLLEGE Vs. UNIVERSITY OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) REGULATIONS of the University of Kerala, made under S. 38 of the Kerala University Act, 1974, prescribe both educational qualifications as well as experience for appointment as Principals of Colleges affiliated to the University. So far as degree or post-graduate colleges are concerned, apart from the educational qualifications, 10 years teaching experience in a college/university after acquiring the prescribed qualification (of which at least two years should be at the degree level) was required for being appointed as Principal. This is the qualification prescribed in the Calicut University, and till recently, in the Mahatma Gandhi University also. The University of Kerala amended its REGULATIONS by Ext. P1 dated December 1, 1986 stipulating inter alia that a teacher must have at least 25 years of service in a college or university before he could be appointed as the Principal of a degree or post graduate College.

(2.) THE first petitioner is the Manager of a Post graduate college namely the Loyola College of Social Sciences, Trivandrum. This college is stated to have been "established by Rev. Fathers belonging to the congregation of Jesuits founded by St. Loyola", Members of the said congregation are Catholics who form a minority community in India as well as in Kerala. THE second petitioner is a teacher in the college appointed in the year 1976, and functioning as "teacher in charge" since March 31, 1985, when the post of Principal became vacant.

(3.) THE scope and content of Art. 30 (I) has been the subject matter of numerous decisions of the Supreme Court and of this Court to all of which it is not necessary to refer. THE right conferred on the minorities is to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice. This right though couched in absolute terms, does not preclude the State from imposing reasonable regulations in the true interest of efficiency of instruction, discipline, health, sanitation, morality, public order and the like. Such regulations are not restrictions on the substance of the right which is guaranteed. THEy secure the proper functioning of the institutions in mutters educational. THE power to impose such regulations, to ensure the excellence of the institutions, in their own interest and in the interests of the students, was recognised as early as in 1958 by the Supreme Court in the decision in Ia re the Kerala Education Bill 1957, AIR 1958 SC 956. THE Supreme Court delineated the right as follows: " We have already observed that Art. 30 (1) gives two rights to the minorities. (1) to establish and (2) to administer, educational institutions of their choice. THE right to administer cannot obviously include the right to maladminister. THE minority cannot surely ask for aid or recognition for an educational institution run by them in unhealthy surroundings, without any competent teachers, possessing any semblance of qualification, and which does not maintain even a fair standard of teaching or which teaches matters subversive of the welfare of the scholars. It stands to reason, then that the constitutional right to administer an educational institution of their choice does not necessarily militate against the claim of the State to insist that in order to grant aid the State may prescribe reasonable regulations to ensure the excellence of the institutions to be aided". THE matter was again discussed in Sidharajbhai v. State of Gujarat, AIR. 1963 SC. 540 in which the Supreme Court, after observing that the right guaranteed by Art. 30 (I) should not be a teasing illusion or a promise of unreality, laid down the scope of the regulations which may be lawfully imposed on such institutions. Such regulations must satisfy a dual test, the test of reasonableness and the test that they are regulative of the educational character of the institution, and conducive to make the institution an effective vehicle of education for the minority community or other persons who resort to it.