- (1.) Leave granted.
(2.) The importance of teachers and their training has been highlighted time and again by eminent educationists and leaders of society. The Courts have also laid considerable emphasis on the dire need of having qualified teachers in schools and colleges. 2.1 In Ahmedabad St. Xavier s College Society v. State of Gujarat, 1974 1 SCC 717, A.N. Ray, C.J., observed: "Educational institutions are temples of learning. The virtues of human intelligence are mastered and harmonised by education. Where there is complete harmony between the teacher and the taught, where the teacher imparts and the student receives, where there is complete dedication of the teacher and the taught in learning, where there is discipline between the teacher and the taught, where both are worshippers of learning, no discord or challenge will arise. An educational institution runs smoothly when the teacher and the taught are engaged in the common ideal of pursuit of knowledge. It is, therefore, manifest that the appointment of teachers is an important part in educational institutions. The qualifications and the character of the teachers are really important. The minority institutions have the right to administer institutions. This right implies the obligation and duty of the minority institutions to render the very best to the students. In the right of administration, checks and balances in the shape of regulatory measures are required to ensure the appointment of good teachers and their conditions of service. The right to administer is to be tempered with regulatory measures to facilitate smooth administration. The best administration will reveal no trace or colour of minority. A minority institution should shine in exemplary eclectism in the administration of the institution. The best compliment that can be paid to a minority institution is that it does not rest on or proclaim its minority character. Regulations which will serve the interests of the students, regulations which will serve the interests of the teachers are of paramount importance in good administration. Regulations in the interest of efficiency of teachers, discipline and fairness in administration are necessary for preserving harmony among affiliated institutions. Education should be a great cohesive force in developing integrity of the nation. Education develops the ethos of the nation. Regulations are, therefore, necessary to see that there are no divisive or disintegrating forces in administration." 2.2 In Andhra Kesari Education Society v. Director of School Education, 1989 1 SCC 392, this Court observed: "Though teaching is the last choice in the job market, the role of teachers is central to all processes of formal education. The teacher alone could bring out the skills and intellectual capabilities of students. He is the engine' of the educational system. He is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values. He needs to be endowed and energised with needed potential to deliver enlightened service expected of him. His quality should be such as would inspire and motivate into action the benefiter. He must keep himself abreast of ever-changing conditions. He is not to perform in a wooden and unimaginative way. He must eliminate fissiparous tendencies and attitudes and infuse nobler and national ideas in younger minds. His involvement in national integration is more important, indeed indispensable. It is, therefore, needless to state that teachers should be subjected to rigorous training with rigid scrutiny of efficiency. It has greater relevance to the needs of the day. The ill-trained or sub-standard teachers would be detrimental to our educational system; if not a punishment on our children. The government and the University must, therefore, take care to see that inadequacy in the training of teachers is not compounded by any extraneous consideration." 2.3 In State of Maharashtra v. Vikas Sahebrao Roundale, 1992 4 SCC 435, the Court said: "The teacher plays pivotal role in moulding the career, character and moral fibres and aptitude for educational excellence in impressive young children. Formal education needs proper equipping of the teachers to meet the challenges of the day to impart lessons with latest techniques to the students on secular, scientific and rational outlook. A well-equipped teacher could bring the needed skills and intellectual capabilities to the students in their pursuits. The teacher is adorned as Gurudevobhava, next after parents, as he is a principal instrument to awakening the child to the cultural ethos, intellectual excellence and discipline. The teachers, therefore, must keep abreast of everchanging techniques, the needs of the society and to cope up with the psychological approach to the aptitudes of the children to perform that pivotal role. In short teachers need to be endowed and energised with needed potential to serve the needs of the society. The qualitative training in the training colleges or schools would inspire and motivate them into action to the benefit of the students. For equipping such trainee students in a school or a college, all facilities and equipments are absolutely necessary and institutions bereft thereof have no place to exist nor entitled to recognition. In that behalf compliance of the statutory requirements is insisted upon. Slackening the standard and judicial fiat to control the mode of education and examining system are detrimental to the efficient management of the education." 2.4 In St. Johns Teachers Training Institute (for Women), Madurai v. State of Tamil Nadu, 1993 3 SCC 595, the Court observed: "The teacher-education programme has to be redesigned to bring in a system of education which can prepare the student-teacher to shoulder the responsibility of imparting education with a living dynamism. Education being closely interrelated to life the well trained teacher can instil an aesthetic excellence in the life of his pupil. The traditional, stereotyped, lifeless and dull pattern of "chalk, talk and teach" method has to be replaced by a more vibrant system with improved methods of teaching, to achieve qualitative excellence in teachereducation." 2.5 In N.M. Nageshwaramma v. State of Andhra Pradesh, 1986 Supp1 SCC 166, the Court observed: "The Teachers Training Institutes are meant to teach children of impressionable age and we cannot let loose on the innocent and unwary children, teachers who have not received proper and adequate training. True they will be required to pass the examination but that may not be enough. Training for a certain minimum period in a properly organised and equipped Training Institute is probably essential before a teacher may be duly launched."
(3.) We have prefaced disposal of these appeals, which are directed against interlocutory order dated 17.12.2008 and final order dated 13.03.2009 passed by the Division Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court in Writ Petition No. 6146 of 2008 and connected matters by highlighting the need for well-equipped and trained teachers because in the last three decades private institutions engaged in conducting teacher training courses / programmes have indulged in brazen and bizarre exploitation of the aspirants for admission to teacher training courses and ranked commercialisation and the regulatory bodies constituted under the laws enacted by Parliament and State Legislatures have failed to stem the rot. The cases filed by these institutions, many of whom have not been granted recognition due to nonfulfilment of the conditions specified in the National Council for Teacher Education Act, 1993 (for short, the 1993 Act') and the Regulations framed thereunder and by the students who have taken admission in such institutions with the hope that at the end of the day they will be able to get favourable order by invoking sympathy of the Court, have choked the dockets of various High Courts and even this Court. The enormity of litigation in this field gives an impression that implementation of the provisions contained in the 1993 Act and the Regulations framed thereunder has been acutely deficient and the objects sought to be achieved by enacting the special legislation, namely, planned and coordinated development of the teacher education system throughout the country, the regulation and proper maintenance of norms and standards in the teacher education system have not been fulfilled so far.;