G S Patel, J. - (1.) A. INTRODUCTION The world we have fashioned for ourselves today is remarkable most of all for its dizzying complexity. We are wont to yearn for the apparent simplicity and straightforwardness of an era long lost to time. This complexity has its own social consequences and repercussions. One of these is the intensity and ferocity of competition in virtually every aspect of our lives; and education - higher education and professional qualifications in particular - is no exception. There are more educational opportunities now than ever before, and a bewildering array of specializations and superspecializations. Engineering is no exception. The sheer number of persons seeking degrees in higher or professional education has forced more and more regulation, and, with it, the establishing of regulatory and supervisory authorities under dedicated statutes. It is the duty of the State to make provision for educational opportunities, but these are not all necessarily run by the State at its cost. This makes it imperative to have overall regulations and supervision. Throughout, the emphasis is - at least ostensibly - on the pursuit of excellence. Merit gains its reward by placement in the best institutions of higher learning. Those who rank lower in merit have narrower and perhaps less optimal choices. Regulation on this scale demands an across-the-board 'flattening', so that all may be assessed by a common measure. This has led to the advent of what are called 'common tests', and these are applied in medicine, engineering, law and other disciplines.B. THE TWO ROUTES IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION
(2.) The young petitioners before us in these two writ petitions brought under Article 226 of the Constitution of India are all studying engineering. But they are in the final year of a three-year diploma course, not the four-year degree course; and that, precisely, is the problem they bring to us. All of them aspire to a full-fledged engineering degree. Normally, a graduate degree in engineering requires a student to take a competitive centralized test administered after the 12th standard. Successful candidates are then enrolled in a four-year degree course. This is therefore a total of 16 years of education, on the 10+2+4 paradigm (ten years in school, two years in what is or used to be called junior college, and then four years in the engineering degree course). The other 'route' is for a student to directly enrol after finishing school, i.e. completing the 10th standard, in a three-year diploma course. This earns the student a diploma, not a degree, and the total education is 10+3, or 13 years. Assuming a student completes school at the age of 16, an engineering degree will require him to study for another six years, until the age of 22. A diploma in engineering, on the other hand, can be obtained at the age of 19. Therefore, if two students complete school together, and one takes the diploma course, he enters the workforce three years ahead of his classmate who chose to do two further years of school or college, then took the very competitive exam, and obtained admission to a four-year engineering degree course. This is where market forces begin to operate. A diplomaholder may, technically, have three years' greater work experience than one who takes the degree course (which finishes later), but the job opportunities for the two are not the same. There is a decided preference for those with degrees over those with diplomas. For this reason, and given the education-length disparity, engineering diploma students are allowed what is called a 'lateral entry'. After completing the three-year diploma course, they can enrol 'laterally' in the second year of the four-year engineering course. In the result, they spend exactly the same time in engineering education; only the component break-up is different. Diploma students taking the lateral entry into the second year engineering degree course would finally have a 10+3+3 education, in aggregate the same as those who directly enrolled in the engineering degree course, following the 10+2+4 pattern.
(3.) The Common Entrance Test, or CET, for engineering admission in Maharashtra is administered by the State Government's Department of Technical Education, or DTE. The number of seats per institute is decided by the All India Council for Technical Education, the AICTE, a regulatory body established under the All India Council for Technical Education Act, 1987 ("the AICTE Act"). C. THE ISSUES IN THE PETITIONS;