STATE OF BOMBAY Vs. BOMBAY EDUCATION SOCIETY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These three appeals, filed by the State of Bombay, with a certificate granted by the Bombay High Court are directed against the Judgment and Order pronounced by that High Court on the 15th February 1954, on three Civil Applications under Article 226. By that Judgment and Order the High Court held that the circular order No. SSN 2054 (a) issued by the State of Bombay, Education Department on the 6th January 1954, was bad in that it contravened the provisions of Article 29 (2) and Article 337 and directed the issue of a Writ prohibiting State from enforcing the Order against the authorities of Barnes High School established and run by the Education Society of Bombay (hereinafter referred as the Society)

(2.) The Society, which is the first respondent in Appeal No. 64 of 1954, is a Joint Stock Company incorporated under the Indian Companies Act, 1913. The other two respondents in that appeal - Ven'ble Archdeacon A.S.H. Johnson and Mrs. Glynne Howell are members and Directors of the Society. The Ven'ble Archdeacon A. S. H. Johnson is also the Secretary of the Society. Both of them are citizen Community of India and are members of the Anglo-Indian Community. The mother tongue of these respondents as of other members of the Anglo-Indians community is English.

(3.) In the State of Bombay there are in all 1403 Secondary Schools 1285 of these Schools impart education through the medium of some language other than English. The remaining 118 Schools have adopted English as the medium of instruction. Thirty out of these 118 Schools are Anglo-Indian Schools. In these thirty schools there are three thousand Anglo-Indian students forming 37 per cent of the total number of students receiving instruction in those Anglo-Indian Schools. The rest 63 per cent consist of non-Anglo-Indian students.