SWAMY SADANANDA Vs. STATE OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Appellant/petitioner is a school-Management. The Management framed some charges against the teacher, fourth respondent herein, and in pursuance of the enquiry, dismissed the said teacher. Under Sec.22 of the Tamil Nadu Private Schools (Regulation) Act (in short 'The Act'), the order of dismissal cannot have any effect unless there is a prior approval of the competent authority under the Act. The Management applied for that approval and the approval was refused. Against that order refusing the approval for the dismissal or as the case may be termination, the Management filed an appeal under Sec.41 of the Act before the Joint Director. That appeal was also dismissed by the Joint Director and hence the Management filed a revision to the Government. During the pendency of the revision, however, a writ petition came to be filed by the Management challenging the order passed by the competent authority as well as the Joint Director. That writ petition, which was registered as W.P. No.16064 of 1996, is said to be still pending. The teacher was dismissed on 8-8-1995 whereas the order was passed by the competent authority on 6-12-1995 and the dismissal of the appeal by the Joint Director was on 25-9-1996 and the writ petition came to be filed in the year 1996.

(2.) After the pendency of this writ petition for about six years, for the first time, the present writ petition (W.P. No.3429 of 2001) came to be filed on the same set of facts before this Court challenging the constitutionality of Sec.22 of the Act on the ground that the section was bad as it provided untrammelled and uncontrolled power to the competent authority enabling the competent authority to act and decide the issue of approval arbitrarily even without giving any reasons or for that matter even without giving any opportunity for the Management to be heard. The section was dubbed as a provision which confers an arbitrary power on the competent authority and, therefore, contrary to the spirit of Art.14 of the Constitution. That was the main challenge. The other challenge was that the provision was opposed to and in contravention of the spirit of Art.19(1)(g) of the Constitution as the Management could not carry on its profession of running the school and that the restriction imposed by the section is unreasonable restriction.

(3.) It is to be seen that all these constitutional challenges which ought to have been raised in W.P. No.16064 of 1996 were not raised there; instead they were raised for the first time in the year 2001 by the present writ petition and in this writ petition, a clear reference was made to the filing of W.P. No.16064 of 1996. The petitioner then says in paragraph 8 as under: "The prayer is general in nature. And it is of far reaching importance and consequences. The point involved in this writ as dealt with separately and finding given thereon."