Allahabad HC Stays AICTE Order Refusing To Extend Approval To HCST Mathura [Read Order]

The Allahabad High Court on Tuesday stayed the May order of the AICTE rejecting the application for extension of approval of the courses run by Hindustan College of Science and Technology, Mathura.

The impugned order of AICTE was reasoned on the grounds that the institute had allegedly provided false or manipulated information with regards of land available with them, that the building plans are also not accepted since, and that the lease deed of the premises on which the college building was situated was unregistered.

On behalf of the AICTE, it was argued that the Supreme Court in the case of Parsvnath Charitable Trust had fixed a schedule for granting or denying approval by 30 April each year and since the scheduled date had passed, and the counselling of students was underway, interference by High Court was not warranted.

The High Court, however, overruled the objection stating that Constitutional Courts had wide power and are not bound by such schedules and noted that the illegality was writ large.

"So far as the allegations in respect of construction of the building is concerned, no such reason in this respect has been mentioned in the impugned order. Even after 1996 the petitioner was granted approval regularly upto 2018-19. So far as the judgment of the Supreme Court is concerned, it is a direction to all concerned to adhere to the time schedule in respect of granting approval to the Institutions but there is no such direction that the illegalities cannot be cured by the higher court by passing the order", the division bench of Justices Ram Surat Ram and Piyush Agrawal .

This college was running for over 25 yrs and when the application for extension of approval was moved for academic year 2019-20, AICTE withdrew approval and placed the college in 'no admission category'. The affect would have been that not only fresh admissions were denied but running session students would have to be shifted to another college to finish course.

This order comes as a relief to various other colleges which have been similarly denied approval and where the students are suffering.

Senior Advocate Anoop Trivedi along with Advocate Kunal Ravi Singh appeared for the appellant. The appeal was filed through Advocates Abhinav Gaur and Vibhu Rai.

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