Delhi High Court: In a case wherein interpretation of applicable admission rules in the matter of admitting students under Management Quota Seats was involved, a Single Judge Bench of Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav, J.* held that the Circular dated 22-9-2023 did not cast any restriction on the right of the management to admit 10% students under the Management Quota. The said Circular only supplemented the provisions of the Delhi Professional Colleges or Institutions (Prohibition of Capitation Fee, Regulation of Admission, Fixation of Non-Exploitative Fee and Other Measures to Ensure Equity and Excellence) Act, 2007 (‘Act’) and the Delhi Professional Colleges or Institutions (Prohibition of Capitation Fee, Regulation of Admission, Fixation of Non- Exploitative Fee and Other Measures to Ensure Equity and Excellence) Rules, 2007 (‘Rules’) made thereunder, particularly the proviso to Section 13 of the Act which provided that the Management Quota Seats had to be filled in a transparent manner based on merit in the qualifying examination.
Background
A batch of writ petitions had been filed by students who were seeking admission in B.Tech course against the 10% Management Quota Seats in private unaided institutions or had already been admitted against the same 10% Management Quota Seats. However, the Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, New Delhi (‘University)’ had not ratified their admission and had declared these admissions as null and void. The other four writ petitions had been filed by the private institutions against the Circulars issued by the respondents. On 22-9-2022, the Directorate of Higher Education (‘DHE’) issued directions to the Vice Chancellor of the University with respect to the admissions against Management Seats in private institutions affiliated to the University. In 2022, the University issued a Circular wherein directions regarding the online registration for Management Quota admissions on the University’s portal and the display of merit list on the said portal, were given. The challenge to the impugned Circulars was on the ground of violation of Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution and the same being issued without any jurisdiction and authority of law.
Analysis, Law, and Decision
The issues for consideration before this Court were:
1. Whether the Circular dated 22-9-2022 could be said to have been issued under Section 17 of the Act?
The Court noted that Section 17 of the Act empowered the Government to issue directions consistent with the provisions of the Act and the Rules made thereunder, to any institution, as in its opinion were necessary or expedient for carrying out the purposes of this Act or give effect to any of the provisions contained therein or in any rules or orders made there under and the management of the institution should comply with such direction. The term ‘Government’ was defined in Section 3(j) of the Act to be the Lieutenant Governor of the NCT Territory of Delhi appointed by the President under Article 239 of the Constitution and designated as such under Article 239-AA of the Constitution. The Court noted that the said Circular had been issued by the DHE with the prior approval of Minister of Higher Education/Dy. Chief Minister, Delhi and thus, opined that “unless the directions were issued with the approval of the Lieutenant Governor, the same could not be construed to be the directions issued by the Government and any other interpretation would be tantamount to destroy the mandate of Section 3(j) of the Act”. The Court further noted that the said Circular was not issued to the institutions and was addressed to the University instead, which as per Section 17 of the Act had to be issued to the institutions. Thus, the Court opined that the Circulars could not be considered to have been issued under Section 17 of the Act.
2. Whether the impugned Circular imposed any restriction on the petitioners’ fundamental rights under Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution?
The Court relied on T.M.A. Pai Foundation v. State of Karnataka, (2002) 8 SCC 481, wherein it was held that “the right of professional institutions to establish and manage educational institutions was regarded as an ‘occupation’ under Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution and this activity could not be treated as a ‘business’ or ‘profession’”. The Court noted that Section 12 of the Act provided that 10% of the total seats in an unaided institution should be allocated as management seats and Rule 8(2)(a) of the Rules also dealt with allotment of seats in Management Quota.
The Court further noted that the impugned Circular required the University to develop an online portal to display the branch wise and college wise seats available under the Management Quota. The Court opined that it was not only the mandate by the Supreme Court in T.M.A. Pai Foundation Case, Islamic Academy of Education v. State of Karnataka, (2003) 6 SCC 697, and P.A. Inamdar v. State of Maharashtra, (2005) 6 SCC 537 but also the fundamental object of the Act and Rules made thereunder, was to ensure quality and excellence in professional education in the NCT of Delhi and for the matters connected therewith and incidental thereto. The Court further opined that “the regulation of admission in a fair, transparent and non-exploitative manner was the heart and soul of Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution. Neither the private institutions nor anyone else would have a grievance in maintaining fairness and transparency and ensuring non-exploitative admission procedure. If the University displayed the information relating to the branch wise and college wise seats of Management Quota, by no stretch of imagination the same could be said to be any restriction on the rights of the private institutions to admit students against the 10% Management Quota”.
The Court also opined that in addition to the advertisement being issued by the private institutions as stipulated under the Rules, if the University also displayed information pertaining to the branch wise and college wise seats available under the Management Quota for the benefit of the students at large, the same could not be said to be a restriction. It would rather be in the interest of the students and of the private institutions to have better choices and to have a larger pool from which the meritorious candidates might be selected as this would bring transparency and obviate allegations against the institutions of backdoor admissions of students under Management Quota through malpractices like non-issuance of forms to prospective candidates. The Court further stated that in the same way, the direction to publish merit wise list online would also not infringe the rights of the private institutions in any manner.
The Court thus held that the Circular dated 22-9-2023 did not cast any restriction on the right of the management to admit 10% students under Management Quota. The said Circular only supplemented the provisions of the Act and the Rules made thereunder, particularly the proviso to Section 13 of the Act which provided that the Management Quota Seats had to be filled in a transparent manner based on merit in the qualifying examination. The Court again relied on T.M.A. Pai Foundation Case wherein the right to impart education and education services was recognized as the service based on ‘no profit no loss’ principal, and thus, opined that “the private institutions could not claim that they generated additional revenue from their 10% seats, as the fee structure for all students was common, therefore, there should not be any reason as to why 10% seats should not be filled up amongst most meritorious available students”. The Court held that “the institutions were not entitled to charge any higher fees from the students admitted through the 10% Management Quota Seats students than the fee being charged from 90% students”.
The Court further opined that the Circulars nowhere took away the right to admit the students up to sanctioned intake capacity or compel the private institutions to compromise with merit or excellence. The Court opined that it was not appropriate to disturb the admission of any of the admitted candidates as no fault could be attributed to the students, thus, the Court instead of treating the admissions made in the Academic Session 2022-2023 as null and void, reduced the 10% Management Quota Seats of the Maharaja Surajmal Insititute of Technology (‘MSIT’) for the Academic Session 2023-2024 to Nil, that is, the 10% Management Quota Seats would be filled up by the designated authority as per the procedure to be followed for filling up the remaining 90% seats for the Academic Session 2023-2024 and opined that any advertisement, already issued by MSIT, for admitting students against the 10% Management Quota Seats stands cancelled.
[Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies-Technical Campus v. Govt. (NCT of Delhi), 2023 SCC OnLine Del 2833, decided on 17-5-2023]
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the Petitioner: Manoj Goel, Mohit Mathur, Puneet Mittal, Manish Vashisht, Rajshekhar Rao, Senior Advocates; Nishant Anand, Gunjan Bansal, Kumar Abhishek, Khagesh B. Jha, Shikha Sharma Bagga, Utkarsh, Vanshay Kaul, Saurav Agarwal, Ashish Tiwari, Ajay Sharma, Sahib Patel, Advocates;
For the Respondents: Anuj Aggarwal, ASC; Santosh Kumar Tripathi, Standing Counsel (Civil); Manoj Goel, Puneet Mittal, Kirti Uppal, Manish Vashisht Senior Advocates; Utkarsh Singh, Tapesh Raghav, Rahul Mourya, Ayushi Bansal, Arshya Singh, Aakash Dahiya, Sanyam Suri, Anita Sahani, Shikha, Shashank, Nishant Anand, Kumar Abhishek, Gunjan Bansal, Snehsish Mukherjee, Vanshay Kaul, Adarsh Priyadarshi, Tarun K Bedi, Vikash Kumar, Sweta Singh, Kumar Utkarsh, Advocates.
*Judgment authored by: Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav