Issuance Of A Public Notice Does Not Require Any Enabling Statutory Provision : Delhi HC [Read Judgment]

In the present writ petition, the Petitioner had challenged the Public Notice issued by the National Council for Teacher Education inviting applications from Institutes for conducting the Integrated Teacher Education Programmes.

The notice is challenged because it only invites Universities and Degree Colleges for submitting applications under the amended NCTE (Recognition, Norms and Procedure) Amendment Regulations, 2019.

These amended regulations provide a list of colleges that are eligible to seek recognition for teaching courses. It is a change from the provisions of the 2014 Regulations which had made the same procedure open to all composite institutions.

Therefore, the Petitioner has challenged the said notice as despite being a composite institution, it has been debarred from applying for grant of recognition/permission to conduct the two new ITEPs.

Mr Sanjay Sharawat, appearing for the Petitioner, argued that a conjoint reading of Regulations 8(1), 2(b) and 3, of the 2014 Regulations, revealed that composite institutions were permitted, thereunder, to apply for starting new courses.

It was further submitted by Mr Sharawat that the law did not permit engrafting, in an Appendix to a statutory Regulation, a limitation which was not contained in the Regulation itself. An Appendix to the Regulation, he would submit, cannot dilute the effect of the Regulation itself.

ASG Sanjay Jain, appearing for the Respondents, submitted that all composite institutions were not universities, or degree colleges, hence, they could not be treated at par. The decision, of the NCTE, to restrict entitlement, in the manner of conducting the two new ITEPs, to Universities and higher education colleges, was based on the perception that these institutions would be better equipped to handle the two new courses.

ASG further argued that Regulation 9 of the 2014 Regulations required every institution, offering the programme to comply with the norms and standards prescribed in Appendices 1 to 17 to the said Regulations. Inasmuch as the petitioners did not fulfill the criteria specified in Clause 1.2 of Appendices 16 and 17, they were not entitled to apply for permission to start the two new ITEPs.

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