SHAMLAJI AROGYA SEVA TRUST Vs. STATE OF GUJARAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) . By way of this petition under Article 226 of the Constitution, the petitioner - Trust has launched the fourth round of litigation for obtaining affiliation to the first and only women's Homoeopathic College established by it and recognized by the Central Council of Homoeopathy (`CCH' for short). The application for affiliation submitted by the petitioner to the Bhavnagar University was, after a local enquiry and recommendation of its Academic and Executive Councils, forwarded on 18.4.2000 by the Registrar, in accordance with the provisions of Section 35 (4) of the Bhavnagar University Act, 1978 (`the University Act' in short), to the State Government for deciding upon the question of grant of affiliation. As the State Government did not take or convey its decision despite a number of letters and representations, the petitioner approached this Court by way of Special Civil Application No.9904 of 2000, after hearing of which a direction to decide within two weeks from 25.9.2000 was issued. It was also observed in the judgment of the said case that in view of a decision of the Supreme Court in another case, the requirement of approval of the Government appeared to be a mere formality. However, as the Government still failed to take a decision, the petitioner filed an application under the Contempt of Courts Act during the hearing of which the Government undertook to take a decision within a period of two weeks from 15.11.2000. Then, even as the Government had directed the petitioner to deposit a sum of Rs.6,00,000 in the joint names of the Registrar of the University and the President of the petitioner-Trust in connection with the application for affiliation and even as that was complied, the government made an order dated 25.11.2000 refusing to accord affiliation to the petitioner's college. That order was challenged in Special Civil Application No.12119 of 2000 in which, by an interim order, the process of centralised admission was put off till 15.1.2001. The detailed order dated 25.11.2000 denying affiliation to the petitioner's college was, after consideration of extensive arguments and by an elaborate judgment, set aside for being unreasonable, arbitrary and bad in law and the considerations on which it was based were held to be not genuine, relevant or germane to the exercise of power. It was expressly held that the application for affiliation could not have been rejected for the reasons stated in that order. While upholding the applicability of the provisions of Section 35 of the University Act, it was also held that the exercise of power under that Section had to be in conformity with the provisions of the Homoeopathy Central Council Act, 1973 (`the Central Act' for short) and the Regulations made thereunder. Accordingly, the Government was directed to reconsider the application of the petitioner and decide the same in accordance with law and in light of the observations made in that judgment.

(2.) . After three rounds of litigation culminating into the directions as above, the Government passed the impugned order dated 1.2.2001 again rejecting the application of the petitioner and that is how the same matter between the same parties came up before the Court with substantially the same grievances and for the same reliefs. The main contentions of the petitioner were that the order impugned in this petition was substantially the reproduction, in short, of some of the same grounds on which the earlier order dated 25.11.2000 was based and which were expressly held not to be genuine or germane to the exercise of power. On this basis it was also submitted that the impugned order was practically in contempt of the directions of this Court. The other main contention of the petitioner was that it was subjected to hostile discrimination even as affiliation to three other Homoeopathy Colleges was granted without applying the same criteria immediately before or after the rejection of the petitioner's application.

(3.) . In view of the contentions as above, it is necessary to refer to the legal propositions laid down in the earlier judgment in Special Civil Application No.12119 of 2000 after an elaborate examination of the relevant facts and legal provisions in light of which the respondent was required to reconsider the matter, as also to set out the grounds sought to be made out in the order impugned in this petition. It was held in the aforesaid earlier judgment that: