KHUDNABARI HIGH SCHOOL Vs. STATE OF ASSAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This batch of four writ petitions involving virtually a common question of facts and of law having been heard together, are now being disposed of by this common judgment. The common grievance of the petitioners pertains to the refusal of the Board of Secondary Education, Assam ("the Board" for short) to accord recognition of the respective Schools with effect from 1.1.2005. For simplification, I will first deal with the facts in W.P. (C) No. 5953 of 2013 and will then make an attempt to apply my decision thereon to the facts of the remaining writ petitions. In this writ petition, the school under the name and style of Khudnabari High School ("the School" for short) is the petitioner represented by its Secretary. The School was established in the year 1990 to cater to the needs of the thickly populated educationally backward area with the departmental permission. Provisional recognition for Class VIII was accorded by the respondent No. 2 (Director of Secondary Education, Govt. of Assam) on 1.1.2001, whereas Board accorded permission to open Class IX on 1.1.2004 and Class X with effect from 1.1.2005. The respondent No. 5 (Inspector of Schools, BDC, Barpeta) used to inspect the School from time to time and he, on being satisfied that the School fulfilled all the requirements for recognition, recommended to the Board for provisional recognition of Class X with effect from 1.1.2006 with permission to present candidates in the High School Leaving Certificate Examination. However, the Board by ignoring the recommendation of the respondent No. 5 and 2 granted provisional recognition to the School only with effect from 1.1.2007 instead of 1.1.2006. By refusing to accord the recognition with effect from 1.1.2006, the School has been deprived of getting the benefit of provincialization. According to the petitioner, the Board had constituted a Small Committee for the purpose of reconsideration of its case, and the Board after scrutiny of all records of the School recommended the change of the date of granting the recognition to 1-1-2006 and the same was also accepted by the Academic Committee. However, the Board, contrary to the recommendation of the Small Committee, by the communication dated 20.7.2013 gave the benefit only to five schools, which incidentally had approached this Court. This prompted the petitioner to move this writ petition.

(2.) No affidavit-in-opposition is filed by the respondents. However, their cases are projected through their respective Standing Counsel, namely, Mr. U.K. Goswamy, for the State of Assam and Shri T.C. Chutia for the Board at the time of the admission hearing. The submission of Mr. HRA Choudhury, the learned senior counsel for the petitioner-School, is that the only reason for not according the recognition with effect from 1.1.2006 was the failure of the Board to hold their meeting on time, which is quite irrational. He argues that the petitioner cannot be penalized for the in action of the Board in time. He, therefore, contends that this is a fit case for the interference of this Court On other hand, Mr. T.C. Chutia, the learned Standing Counsel for the Board, supports the impugned decision of the Board and submits that no interference is called for in this case.

(3.) The minutes of the meeting of the Board of Secondary Education, Assam held on 8.4.2013 would indicate that the Board in that meeting had resolved to constitute Small Committee to examine, among others, the date of giving effect to recognition of some schools as 1.1.2007 in place of the date certified by the respondent No. 2 and the respondent No. 5. There is no dispute at the bar that the petitioner-School is one such school. The Small Committee so constituted held that 22 schools including the petitioner-School have been deprived of their due date of recognition as the meeting of the Board was not held on time and that the Board while giving the date of recognition had ignored the recommendation of the respondent No. 2 and 5. Interestingly, though 22 schools including the petitioner-School stand on the same footing in terms of the findings of the Small Committee, the Board issued the impugned order by giving the date of recognition of five schools with retrospective effect on different dates between 1.1.2005 and 1.1.2003 leaving behind the remaining seventeen schools including the petitioner-School. Though no specific reason was assigned by the Board for excluding the remaining seventeen schools, I am of the view that those five schools have been chosen for the simple reason that they had approached this Court whereas the petitioner-School and the remaining sixteen schools did not do so. In my considered judgment, such discriminatory action is without any valid justification, more so, when all those schools belong to the same category: likes should be treated alike. The impugned decision, therefore, falls foul of the right to equality guaranteed under Articles 14 of the Constitution of India, which cannot be sustained in law. This certainly warrants the interference of this Court.