NCTE decision cannot be overruled: Rajasthan court

 In a landmark judgment, the Rajasthan High Court has held that the policy decision of the National Council for Teachers’ Education (NCTE) to control “mushroom growth” of teachers’ training colleges in the country cannot be put to judicial review even if the colleges have created a huge infrastructure and employed a big staff.

Disposing of a bunch of more than 100 writ petitions moved by private colleges running teachers’ training courses such as B. Ed. and B.S.T.C., Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari said the NCTE was entitled to refuse recognition to them for running the courses for the academic year 2009-10 under its policy decision to check the increase in the number of such institutions.

The Court, in its verdict delivered at the Jaipur Bench here over the weekend, took a serious note of the fact that in Rajasthan alone the number of trained teachers coming out of these colleges was around 1.20 lakh every year against the number of jobs limited to 20,000 a year.

The State government submitted before the Court that there were only 5,593 vacancies for trained teachers during 2008-09, while about 4 lakh candidates applied for them. About 110 colleges in the State were denied recognition with the intention to regulate the availability of jobs vis-À-vis the number of eligible trained candidates.

The Court was also informed that the NCTE was conducting a national survey in which many of the recognised institutions had been de-recognised for various reasons.

Counsels for the petitioner colleges contended that they had put in huge amounts for creating infrastructure and employing the staff, but they were denied recognition for 2008-09 and a lot many might have been deprived in 2009-10.

The NCTE took applications from all the colleges and also inspected their sites and facilities.

Looking to the fact that the NCTE has taken a decision to regulate the number of colleges running in each State, Mr. Justice Bhandari observed that the NCTE had decided not to grant recognitions to achieve the objectives of the NCTE Act, 1993.

“The requirements of manpower and other aspects are said to be under survey. The information supplied by the State government, taken as an input to decide the issue as to whether the institutions should be given recognition or not, is correct.”

“Since it is a decision in respect of all institutions in the country, the policy decision of the NCTE cannot be held to be overruled by the Court in a casual manner,” ruled the Court.

The Judge also observed that it was not an absolute fundamental right of colleges to run the institutions, subject as it was to reasonable restrictions.