SARDAR PATEL CHARITABLE TRUST Vs. STATE OF GUJARAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this group of petitions, the petitioners have a common cause of action. The petitioners have received necessary recognition and permission for running Secondary and Higher Secondary schools in the State of Gujarat. Such permissions have been granted at the first instance either by the Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Board or by the State Government in appeal. All the petitioners were granted such permission to run their schools on the condition that the Government will not bear the burden of financing such schools. In short, the petitioners had received permission from the respondents to start their new schools without grant-in-aid. Later on, the petitioners applied to the authorities to give grant to run their respective schools. The respondents did not accede to their requests. The petitioners have, therefore, at different stages under different circumstances approached this Court. Though there are certain minor factual differences, the central issue in all these petitions is common. The short question that has been placed before this Court for consideration and decision is whether the petitioners are entitled to receive grant-in-aid for their schools from the Government. In other words, the question is whether the Government erred in rejecting the request of the petitioners to release grant in favour of their educational institutions.

(2.) For the purpose of deciding the above controversies, some of the factual aspects brought on record can be noted.

(3.) Special Civil Application No.1479 of 1999 has been filed by one Ankur Kelvani Mandal. The petitioner therein applied for starting school in the secondary section. Such an application was rejected by the Board on 9.8.91. The petitioner, therefore, filed an appeal and the State Government by an order dated 4.8.94 granted permission to the petitioner to run the school. Such permission, however, was with the condition that the petitioner shall not claim grant-in-aid for its school. It may be noted that though permission was granted by the State Government in the year 1994, case of the respondents is that the the petitioner did not start its school right up to 2000 and thereafter also, after running the school for about five years, the petitioner once again closed down the school. To these factual averments, learned advocate for the petitioner has not raised any dispute. In fact, these aspects are also borne out from the affidavit filed by the petitioner. The case of the petitioner is that for want of financial aid from the Government, the petitioner could not start the school and the school-management, therefore, made series of representations to the State Government for giving grant to the petitioner to run its school. Such representations were made in the years 1995 to 1998. Since no response was available from the Government, the petitioner filed Special Civil Application No.5699 of 1998. The said petition came to be disposed by an order dated 5.11.98 wherein the learned single Judge of this Court directed the State Government to consider the case of the petitioner for releasing of grant. It was observed that the case of the petitioner cannot be discriminated from other similar cases. It was observed that the undertaking given by the petitioner (not to claim grant even in future) would not disentitle the petitioner from such consideration since at the time of giving the undertaking the petitioner was not aware of the fact that grant has been given to other similarly situated schools.