Vineet Saran, J. - (1.) All these writ petitions raise common questions of facts and law and thus, they have been taken up and heard together. The dispute relates to the fixing of the Management quota for admissions in private unaided professional educational institutions and the fee to be charged by them. It may be clarified at the threshold that the question of the Management quota and fee structure to be charged, which is being considered by this Court, is only with regard to the Academic Session 2003-04. As regards the subsequent years, the fee and quota would be determined as per the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court in matters concerning this issue.
(2.) A brief background of the dispute may first be considered before the facts of these cases are dealt with. The question of admission and the fee structure in private unaided professional educational institutions (alongwith other educational institutions) has been a subject nattier of dispute for the last several years and has been taken up by the Courts and considered on more than one occasion. Although imparting education is essentially a State function but because of the inability of the State to carry it out efficiently, over the past few years, there has been a rapid growth of the private educational institutions and several fresh disputes have thus cropped up. Besides other issues, the question as to what percentage of seats can be filled up by the Management and what fee structure is to be charged by them from their students was considered in detail by the 11 Judges Bench of the Apex Court in the case of T.M.A. Pai Foundation V. State of Karnataka, AIR 2003 S.C. 355 : (2002) 8 SCC 481 : (2002) 3 UPLBEC 2817 (SC). In the said judgment certain guidelines had been issued relating to the manner in which admissions to private professional and non- professional colleges (both aided and unaided) would be regulated. It was also provided that such private educational institutions would only charge a uniform, fee from all their students and there could not be a fee structure which permitted different fee to be charged from different classes of students. The said judgment was interpreted differently by the respective State Governments and the Union of India as well as by educational institutions, in their own way and as it suited them. The matter thus came up before a five Judges Bench of the Apex Court for resolving the conflict of interpretations given by the different parties. Thus a Bench of five Judges, in the case of Islamic Academy of Education v. State of Karnataka, (2003) 6 SCC 697 : (2003) 3 UPLBEC 2424 (SC), ironed out the creases with regard to the interpretations given to the judgment in T.M.A. Pai's case. The Supreme Court framed four questions, which were considered by them and the same, have been set out in Paragraph 6 of the said judgment and are quoted below :- (1) whether the educational institutions are entitled to fix their own fee structure; (2) whether minority and non-minority educational institutions stand on the same footing and have the same rights; (3) whether private unaided professional colleges are entitled to fill in their seats, to the extent of 100%, and if not, to what extent; and (4) whether private unaided professional colleges are entitled to admit students by evolving their own method of admission.
(3.) Question Nos. 1, 3 and 4 are the ones which are relevant for the purposes of the present cases.;