Pushpa Kumari & Ors vs State Of Bihar & Ors

12.11.2008 of the Division Bench of the Patna High

Court in Letters Patent Appeal No. 796 of 2007 and

order dated 06.02.2009 in Civil Review No. 289 of

2008.

3. The facts very briefly are that Millia Kaneez

Fatima Women's Primary Teachers Training College,

Rambag, Purnea (for short `the College') is a minority

2

institution established and maintained by the Millia

Education Trust. Though the College was established

in 1985 for imparting teachers training course, after

seven rounds of litigation it was granted recognition

by order dated 15.12.1994 by the State Government

with retrospective effect for the sessions 1985-1987 to

1993-1995 pursuant to the directions of the High

Court in C.W.J.C. No. 1304 of 1993. Appellant Nos. 1,

2, 3 and 4 pursued their training in the College during

the sessions 1988-1990, 1991-1993, 1992-1994 and

1993-1995 respectively. In response to an

advertisement dated 26.05.2007 of the Bihar School

Examination Board (for short `the Board') the

appellants approached the Board through the College

for examination forms, but the Board did not issue

the examination forms.

4. The appellants then filed C.W.J.C. No. 7321 of

2007 before the Patna High Court for a direction to

the Board to release the forms and accept the fees and

forms of the appellants for the teachers training

3

examination and to allow them to appear in the

examination. Alongwith the Writ Petition, the

appellants also filed an application for interim orders

and on 13.06.2007, the learned Single Judge of the

High Court passed an interim order directing the

Board to accept the fees and forms of the appellants

and allow them to appear in the ensuing teachers

training examination. The Board, however, did not

comply with the interim order. On 24.08.2007, the

learned Single Judge heard the Writ Petition alongwith

other Writ Petitions on merits and dismissed the Writ

Petitions by common order, after holding that under

the National Council for Teacher Education Act, 1993

(for short `the NCTE Act'), it is only the National

Council for Teacher Education (for short `the NCTE')

which can grant recognition for teachers training

course and the College had not applied for recognition

to the NCTE. Aggrieved by the order dated

24.08.2007 the appellants filed Letters Patent Appeal

No. 796 of 2007, but the same was also dismissed by

the Division Bench of the High Court by the impugned

4

order dated 12.11.2008. The appellants then filed

Civil Review No. 289 of 2008 before the Division

Bench, but the same was also dismissed by order

dated 06.02.2009 of the Division Bench of the High

Court.

5. Learned counsel for the appellants submitted

that the College of the appellants was granted

recognition by the State Government by order dated

15.12.1994 for the academic sessions 1985-1987 to

1993-1995. He submitted that this recognition was

cancelled by memo no. 332 dated 18.11.1999, but the

High Court quashed the memo no. 332 dated

18.11.1999 in C.W.J.C. Nos. 4622, 11275 and 11640

of 2009 and against the orders passed in these Writ

Petitions no appeal was preferred by any party and all

this would be evident from the copy of the order dated

03.07.2009 of the High Court in C.W.J.C. No. 2329 of

2009 filed as an additional document. He submitted

that the result is that the recognition of the College

granted by the State Government by order dated

5

15.12.1994 for the sessions 1985-1987 to 1993-1995

has been restored. He submitted that as the

appellants had pursued their training in the College

during the period for which the College had

recognition, they were entitled to take the teachers

training examination conducted by the Board. He

vehemently argued that the High Court was not

correct in taking the view that since the College had

not applied for recognition under the NCTE Act, the

appellants could not be allowed to take the

examinations conducted by the Board because the

NCTE Act came into force with effect from 01.07.1995

and the NCTE was established only on 17.08.1995

after the appellants had undertaken their training

courses in the College. He relied on the decisions of

this Court in Sunil Kumar Parimal and Another v. State

of Bihar and Others [(2007) 10 SCC 150] and Kumari

Ranjana Mishra and Another v. The State of Bihar and

Others[(2011) 4 SCC 192] in support of his

submissions.

6 6. Learned counsel for the respondents, on the

other hand, relied on the order dated 08.03.1999 of

the High Court in C.W.J.C. No. 6950 of 1997 in which

a similar relief claimed by the College itself for the

students for the sessions 1987-1990 to 1993-1995 for

directing the Board to allow them to take

examinations has been rejected by the High Court. He

submitted that the aforesaid decision of the High

Court was binding also on the appellants.

7. We are of the considered opinion that as the

appellants were not parties in C.W.J.C. No. 6950 of

1997, the order dated 08.03.1999 of the High Court in

the said Writ Petition will not be binding on the

appellants. The appellants had filed C.W.J.C. No.

7321 of 2007 and we have perused the orders of the

learned Single Judge passed in C.W.J.C. No. 7321 of

2007 and other connected cases and we find that the

only reason given by the learned Single Judge in

dismissing the Writ Petition of the appellants is that

the College had not applied for grant of recognition

7

under the NCTE Act. We also find that the Division

Bench of the High Court has dismissed the Letters

Patent Appeal of the appellants on the ground that the

recognition which had been granted to the College had

been withdrawn on 16.03.2007. Thus, neither the

learned Single Judge nor the Division Bench of the

High Court have held that the recognition granted to

the College by the order dated 15.12.1994 for the

academic sessions 1985-1987 to 1993- 1995 was

invalid or stood cancelled. As the NCTE Act came into

force on 01.07.1995 and the NCTE was established on

17.08.1995, this Court has held in Sunil Kumar

Parimal and Another v. State of Bihar and Others and

Kumari Ranjana Mishra and Another v. The State of

Bihar and Others (supra) that the NCTE Act will have

no application for any period prior to academic

sessions 1995-1996. Thus the appellants who have

undertaken the teachers training course in the College

which had a valid recognition of the State Government

during the academic sessions 1985-1987 to 1993-1995

8

were entitled to take the examinations conducted by

the Board.

8. We accordingly allow these appeals, set aside the

order of the learned Single Judge as well as the orders

of the Division Bench in the Letters Patent Appeal and

in the Civil Review and direct the Board to conduct

the examination for the appellants as early as

possible. There shall be no order as to costs.

.............................J.

(R. V.

Raveendran)

.............................J.

(A. K. Patnaik)

New Delhi,

October 11, 2011.