Jind Institute of Engineering and Technology vs State of Haryana and Others

Ranjit Singh, J.—This order shall dispose of two Civil Writ Petition Nos. 19509 of 2011 and 9844 of 2012. The facts have been taken from CWP No. 19509 of 2011. Jind Institute of Engineering and Technology has approached this Court to impugn the order passed by All India Council for Technical Education (for short ''AICTE'') dated 5.10.2011 (Annexure P-16) simply on the ground that the order itself reveals non-application of mind. Since then the writ petition has traveled through various phases and the Court issued directions to Deputy Commissioner, Jind to submit a report regarding the present area of the petitioner-Institute.

Learned Sr. counsel appearing for the petitioner has confined his challenge simply to the ground that the impugned order passed was without application of mind.

In the impugned order, it is mentioned that show cause notice was issued to the petitioner- Institute on 27.07.2011 and the Institute was given time to file reply to the show cause notice within 10 days of the issue of this letter. It is noticed that the Institute had not submitted any reply till the date of passing of the order i.e. 5.10.2011 and, therefore, after examining the matter respondent- AICTE has decided to withdraw the approval of the petitioner- Institute. Learned counsel for the petitioner has invited my attention to Annexure P-9 which is a letter through which reply to the show cause notice issued was submitted. Annexure P-9 is the photocopy of the letter which contains receipt by AICTE dated 16.08.2011 indicating that this communication was received by respondent- AICTE on this date.

Mr. Sharma appearing for AICTE has made an attempt to show that there are no initials on the part of the stamp meant for this purpose and states that this letter was not received by respondent- AICTE.

Prima facie, the stamp on Annexure P-9 would indicate that the reply to the show cause notice had been submitted. As per counsel for the petitioner this submission has not been denied in the reply filed by AICTE.

Be that as it may, it would be appropriate to direct the respondent AICTE to reconsider the issue in the light of response filed by the petitioner-Institute. There would not be any need to go into the merits of the controversy at this stage.

The writ petitions are, accordingly, disposed of with the direction to respondent-AICTE to consider the reply submitted by the petitioner-institute to show cause notice, copy of which has been annexed with the petition and pass fresh notice.

AICTE would be at liberty to pass any order in accordance with law after following the principle of natural justice and by affording opportunity of hearing to the petitioner. The issue of regularizing the admission of those students who were admitted under the orders of this Court would be considered on the basis of fresh order passed by the AICTE. The writ petitions are disposed of.