C V S KRISHNA MURTHY TEJA CHARITIES TIRUPATI CHITTOR DISTRICT Vs. ALL INDIA COUNCIL FOR TECHNICAL EDUCATION NEW DELHI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) COMMON ORDER :All these writ petitions are being dealt with under a common order since issue requires to be adjudicated in all the writ petitions is similar.

(2.) As factual position being undisputed, a brief reference thereto would suffice: The All India Council for Technical Education, New Delhi (for short "AICTE') issued a notification for consideration for applications for establishment of new technical institutions for the academic year 2003-2004. The said notification was published in the newspapers on 18-8:2002. As per the said notification the last date for submission of completed application forms was 30-9-2002. All such applications were required to be verified at concerned regional office on or before 15-11-2002 from the original documents along with certified English version in case of documents in regional languages. All the applicants had to enclose No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the concerned State Government for establishment of the technical institute for the academic year 2003-2004 as per the format given in the application form and made it clear that only such of those applicants who would produce all the documents in one lot on or before 15-11-2002, which was subsequently extended to 25-11-2002, will be invited for the presentation and other applications will be summarily rejected. It is also indicated in Clause-7 that all those applicants who had submitted the application under AICTE advertisement of August, 2001 and have not been issued Letter of Intent (LOI) need not apply again. However, they were required to produce all the documents to the concerned regional office as indicated at Clause 5 including NOC from the State Government for establishment of new technical institution for 2003-2004. In response to above notification the petitioners made their applications seeking permission for establishment of technical institutions for the academic year 2003-2004. Some of the institutions, namely petitioners in W.P. Nos.24668 of 2002, 1401, 1798 and 1799 of 2003 had already registered their applications for the academic year 2002- 2003 and their applications were transferred for the academic year 2003-2004. The State Government through its letter dated 9-11-2002 informed the AICTE that as on date there were 217 Engineering Colleges in the State with an intake of 62,750 and the availability of Engineering seats per 1.00 lakhs population is 82.86 and the State of A.P. is at number 2 position in the country, in respect of the number of Engineering Colleges and the intake in the college making its policy on sanction of new private Engineering Colleges and forwarded its recommendations to the AICTE which reads as under:

(3.) In view of the above, the present writ petitions have been filed to declare the insistence of NOC from the State Government for establishing new technical institutions as illegal, arbitrary and unconstitutional and to have the applications processed without reference to NOC from the State Government and the letter issued by the State Government dated 9-11-2002 is without jurisdiction. The Recommending authority, namely the State Government cannot take any policy decision and can request the AICTE not to sanction any other Engineering Colleges except uncovered Revenue Divisions and the places mentioned in G.O. Ms. No.501. Once AICTE Act governs the field relating to establishment of technical institutions and the Regulations made thereunder in view of Entry 66 of List 1 of the Constitution, issuance of letter by the State Government is without jurisdiction.