NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has said that a state government is well within its right not to grant recognition to the professional colleges depending upon the employment prospects for the candidates passed out from such courses.
A bench of Justices M R Shah and M M Sundresh allowed an appeal by the Uttarakhand government against the High Court's decision to quash a communication of July 16, 2013 to the National Council for Teachers Education against granting recognition to new BEd colleges or increase intake of candidates.
The top court held that the High Court has committed a serious error in holding that the decision not to recommend for the new BEd colleges can be said to be arbitrary.
"Under the provisions of the NCTE Regulations, the State is well within its right to make suitable recommendation. As per Rule 7(5) of the NCTE Regulations, 2014, on receipt of the communication from the office of the Regional Committee to the State, the state government is required to send its recommendations or comments to the Regional Committee. It further provides that in case the State Government is not in favour of the recommendation, it shall provide detailed reasons or grounds thereof," the bench said.
Therefore, when the state government is required to provide detailed reasons against grant of recognition with necessary statistics, it includes the need and/or requirement, the bench added.
The state government was well within its right to recommend or opine that it is not in favour of granting further recognition to the new BEd colleges as against the need of annually 2500 teachers approximately 13000 students would be passing out every year,.therefore, for the remaining students, there will be unemployment, the bench said.
So, the decision cannot be said to be arbitrary, it said.
"The need of the new colleges looking to the requirement can be said to be a relevant consideration and a decision not to recommend further recognition to the new BEd colleges on the need basis cannot be said to be arbitrary," the bench said, while declaring the High Court's judgement as unsustainable.
The court set aside the division bench decision of September 10, 2018 which had confirmed the single judge bench order of 2014 that had quashed the order issued by the state government.
The state government led by advocate Krishnam Mishra submitted that a conscious policy decision was not required to be interfered with by the High Court in exercise of power under Article 226 of the Constitution.
As against the need of 2500 teachers per annum, approximately 13000 students would be passing out the BEd courses, which ultimately would result into unemployment, it added.
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