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Judgment
Rakesh Kumar Jain, J.—Petitioner has prayed for a direction to respondent No. 1/National Council for Teacher Education [for short ''the NCTE''] to permit intake of 100 additional seats in B.Ed, course in the session 2013-14 as it is a duly recognized and affiliated college for the said course. The skeletal facts of the writ petition are that the petitioner is a private affiliated self aided college. It has been approved since the year 2005 by the NCTE, State of Punjab and Guru Nanak Dev University to run B.Ed. Course which has been initiated in the year 2006 onwards with intake of 100 seats. The necessary permission by the NCTE for running the B.Ed. course as well as M.Ed. course has been granted. The petitioner applied for additional intake of 100 seats of B.Ed. course in the year 2009 but its case was sent back by respondent No. 1/NCTE highlighting certain deficiencies primarily requiring the college to get a NAAC certificate. It is alleged that the petitioner obtained the NAAC certificate on 4.9.2010 and being already approved college for B.Ed./M.Ed., having the requisite NAAC certificate, applied on 23.8.2011, along with all requisite documents and fees in proper order for further intake of 100 more seats in the B.Ed. Course for the session of 2012-13. However, it is alleged that the NCTE did not decide their application and in this process the petitioner had lost one academic session 2012-13. The petitioner then served legal notice dated 18.3.2013 to ensure that the next academic session 2013-14 be not wasted for want of response from the NCTE and since the NCTE was not reacting, present writ petition has been filed for the issuance of a direction to NCTE to issue forthwith formal approval or permission for intake of 100 additional seats for B.Ed. Course w.e.f. session 2013-14 as the petitioner/college fulfills all necessary norms and parameters.
After notice, respondent No. 1 has filed reply in which it has been averred that application dated 23.8.2011 has never been received in the officer rather the petitioner has submitted similar offline application vide their letter dated 26.8.2011 received in the office on 6.9.2011 which was not in consonance with the NCTE Regulations 2009 (which mandates submission of online application) and thus, the same could not have been considered by the Northern Regional Committee as a valid application for grant of additional intake. Insofar as the original application of the petitioner institution for additional intake is concerned, that has already been rejected by the Northern Regional Committee (NRC), NCTE vide its order dated 6.7.2009. It is also averred that as per the NCTE Act, Rules and Regulations and orders issued thereunder, there is no provision of review of the order once passed by the NCTE as remedy of appeal in terms of Section 18 of the Act has to be availed against the order of rejection/refusal passed by the NCTE under Sections 14, 15 & 16 of the National Council for Teacher Education Act, 1993 [for short ''the Act'']. It is further averred that though reply to the deficiency letter was submitted by the petitioner on 16.2.2009, the matter was placed before the NRC in its 139th meeting held on April 10th to 12th, 2009 and the Committee decided to ask the petitioner to submit the legally valid documents as per the regulations.
In reply, learned counsel for the petitioner has referred to the NCTE notification dated 27.11.2007 which was issued in supersession of the Regulations mentioned in para 12 of the said regulations and were called the National Council for Teachers Education [Recognition Norms and Procedure] Regulations, 2007. These Regulations are appended with the writ petition as Annexure P-3. The petitioner has referred to Clause 5 of the said Regulations, 2007 laying down the manner of making application and time limit.
Clause 5 of the said Regulations mentioned in notification dated 27.11.2007 is reproduced as under:--
Manner of making application and Time Limit.-
(1) An institution eligible under Regulation 4, desirous of running a teacher education programme may apply to the concerned Regional Committee of NCTE for recognition in the prescribed form in triplicate along with processing fee and requisite documents.
(2) The form can be downloaded from the Council''s website www.ncte.in.org, free of cost. The said form can also be obtained from the office of the Regional Committee concerned by payment of Rs. 1000/- (Rs. One thousand only) by way of a demand draft of a Nationalized Bank drawn in favour of the Member Secretary, NCTE payable at the city where the office of the Regional Committee is located.
(3) The application can be submitted conventionally or electronically online. In the latter case, the requisite documents in triplicate along with the processing fee shall be submitted separately to the office of the Regional Committee concerned. Those who apply online shall have the benefit of not to pay for the form.
(4) The cut off date for submission of application to the Regional Committee concerned shall be 31st October of the preceding year to the academic session for which recognition has been sought.
(5) All complete applications received on or before 31st October of the year shall be processed for the next academic session and final decision, either recognition granted or refused, shall be communicated by 15th May of the succeeding year.
Learned counsel for the petitioner has stated that the petitioner has submitted the application conventionally which has been received in the office of the NCTE but still the same has not been decided.
As against this, learned counsel for the respondent/NCTE has submitted that the petitioner has tried to mislead the Court by appending Regulations of 2007 which has been superseded by the NCTE notification dated 31.8.2009 issued in terms of Section 32(2) of the Act framing the National Council for Teachers Education (Recognition Norms and Procedure) Regulations, 2009 in which the manner of making application and time limit is provided as under:
Manner of making application and Time Limit.-
(1) An institution eligible under Regulation 4, desirous of running a teacher education programme may apply to the concerned Regional Committee of National Council for Teacher Education for recognition in the prescribed form in triplicate along with processing fee and requisite documents.
(2) The prescribed form may be downloaded from the website of the National Council for Teacher Education namely www.ncteindia.org.
(3) The application may be essentially submitted electronically through online mode available on the website of National Council for Teacher Education along with the processing fee. However, while submitting the application through on-line mode, the application and requisite documents in triplicate shall have to be submitted or send by registered post separately to the office of the Regional Committee concerned, immediately after online submission of the application.
(4) Duly completed applications in all respect may be submitted to the Regional Committee concerned during the period from the 1st day of September 3 till 31st day of October of the preceding year to the academic session for which recognition has been sought.
Provided further mat the condition of last date for submission of application shall not apply to any innovative programme of teacher education, for which separate guidelines have been issued by National Council for Teacher Education.
(5) All applications received on-line on or before the 31st day of October of the year shall be processed for the next academic session and final decision, either recognition granted or refused, shall be communicated to the applicant on or before the 15th day of May of the succeeding year.
Learned counsel for the respondents has submitted that according to the Regulations, 2009, the application has been essentially submitted electronically through online mode available on the website of National Council for Teacher Education along with the processing fee. However, while submitting the application through on-line mode, the application and requisite documents in triplicate shall have to be submitted or sent by registered post separately to the office of the Regional Committee concerned, immediately after on-line submission of the application. It is thus, submitted that the word ''submission of the application'' conventionally as provided under Clause 5(3) of the Regulations, 2007 is no more in operation after the Regulations, 2009 in which Clause 5(3) essentially provides for submission of application electronically through online mode available on the website.
In view thereof, the application has rightly not been considered to have been received by the respondents.
Learned counsel for the respondents has also argued that since the petitioner has relied upon an overruled Regulations, which have been made part of the writ petition as Annexure P-3, therefore, he has mislead this Court for which he is liable to be penalised with exemplary costs.
In this regard he has relied upon decisions of the Supreme Court in the case of Dalip Singh Vs. State of U.P. and Others, Prestige Lights Ltd. Vs. State Bank of India, " Salem Advocate Bar Association, Tamil Nadu Vs. Union of India (UOI), , Vinod Seth Vs. Devinder Bajaj and Another, and State of Uttaranchal Vs. Balwant Singh Chaufal and Others, in which heavy costs have been imposed by the Supreme Court for misleading the Court.
I have heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the record.
There is no dispute that the petitioner has relied upon the Regulations, 2007 in order to contend that the application submitted by it conventionally and received by the respondents requires consideration and for that matter prayed for a direction. On the other hand, it is also not in dispute that Regulations, 2007 has already been superseded by Regulations, 2009 which provides application to be submitted electronically through online mode as the procedure to submit the application form conventionally has been taken away by the Regulations, 2009. Accordingly, the stand taken by the respondents that there is no application submitted by the petitioner electronically through online mode, the respondents could not have reacted to the application which has been allegedly submitted conventionally through Registered post as it is against the provisions of Clause 5(3) of the Regulations, 2009.
In view thereof, I do not find any error on the part of the respondents in not considering the application of the petitioner for the academic session in which they had filed their application conventionally through Registered post. Consequently, the writ petition is found to be without any merit.
On the other hand, it is a very serious matter that the petitioner has appended Regulations, 2007 with the writ petition as Annexure P-3 to mislead this Court as the said Regulation has been superseded by the Regulations, 2009. It cannot be imagined that the petitioner/college who is seeking approval since 2005 is not aware of the notification issued by the NCTE dated 31.8.2009 especially when the writ petition has been filed on 3.7.2013. Thus the petitioner in order to take undue advantage, while misleading the Court has appended the Regulations, 2007 to highlight the manner of making application which suits the petitioner because it did not send the application electronically by online mode and had rather allegedly sent the application by Registered post which was not acceptable in terms of the Regulations, 2009.
In this view of the matter, there is no other alternative but to impose heavy cost upon the petitioner so that it may not try to mislead the Court in future. Thus, taking recourse to the judgments of the Supreme Court referred to above, the present writ petition is hereby dismissed with costs of Rs. 1,00,000/-, which shall be deposited by the petitioner with the State Legal Services Authority, Punjab within a period of three months and shall produce a copy of the receipt on record of this case. It is made clear that if the direction is not followed by the petitioner in letter and spirit then the Registry shall put up the case before this Court for appropriate orders which could be initiation of contempt proceedings against the petitioner as well.