KM ASHA LATA Vs. PRINCIPAL MEERUT COLLEGE MEERUT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Can a student secure admission into an educational institution as of right, is the issue of importance this petition under Article 226 of the Constitution raises. No one denies the desirability of every boy and girl in the country being able to receive the education that he or she might want, but the question for decision before me here is whether a school or College can be compelled to admit him or her into the desired class.

(2.) The facts are quite simple. The petitioner is Km. Asha Lata, daughter of one Om Prakash Gupta of Meerut. She was a student of the Meerut College, a College affiliated to the University of Agra. She appeared at the B.Sc. Final examination of that University in 1957 and passed. She then joined the M. Sc. Previous class in Botany in the College. She appeared for the M.Sc. Previous examination of University in 1958, but failed. Thereupon she expressed a desire to be readmitted to her old class for the sessions 1958-59. But the Colleg'e authorities expressed their inability to oblige her, The reason was that, since for Science subjects practicals are as important as theory, and since the laboratory equipment of the College is limited; it has only eight seals in the M.Sc. Previous class in Botany, and an equal number in the M.Sc. Final Class; all these seats had been filled in accordance with certain rules framed in this behalf by the College, so that there was no vacancy which could be offered to the petitioner. Her father Om Prakash took up the matter with the, Principal of the College, and wrote him a number of letters, including a highly objectionable one dated 28-8-1958, insisting that she be admitted. But on the Principal refusing to yield, the petitioner has come to this Court and prays for the issue of an order of mandamus commanding the Principal to admit her into the M.Sc. Previous class in Botany for the current session.

(3.) Now, it cannot be disputed that in this Court the petitioner can succeed only if two conditions are fulfilled : first that she has a legal right to be admitted to the class she wants; and second that there is a legal duty cast on the Principal to admit her.