Case Background
The institution involved is a teachers’ training college in Bihar, running since 1987. It initially had recognition from the State Government and, after the NCTE Act, 1993 came into force, it obtained recognition from the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE).
On 03.03.2015, NCTE granted recognition to this college under the NCTE Act. The recognition order clearly stated that the college could admit students only after obtaining affiliation from the examining body, namely the Bihar School Examination Board (referred to as “the Board”).
A copy of the NCTE recognition order dated 03.03.2015 was also endorsed to the Secretary of the Board for “consequential action”. The High Court, in this Letters Patent Appeal, records that Section 14(6) read with Section 16 of the NCTE Act requires the examining body to grant affiliation once NCTE recognition is granted, leaving practically no discretion to refuse.
Despite this, the Board did not grant affiliation. The institution and its students suffered because without affiliation, students could not lawfully be admitted or allowed to appear in the teachers’ training examinations conducted by the Board.
Faced with this inaction, the Director-cum-Principal of Mithila Hanumant National College of Health and Physical Education, Darbhanga, approached the Patna High Court by filing Civil Writ Jurisdiction Case No.4035 of 2017.
In that writ petition, however, the main prayer was not framed as a direct request for affiliation. Instead, the petitioner institution asked for permission for its students to appear in the teachers’ training examination to be conducted by the Board, along with certain ancillary reliefs.
A learned Single Judge of the Patna High Court decided the writ petition on 12.10.2017. The Single Judge, taking note of the Board’s persistent delay and its stand that a regulation on affiliation was still under preparation, allowed the writ petition and imposed costs of Rs. 5,00,000 on the Board. The amount was directed to be utilised for the welfare of the students of the college.
Aggrieved by the imposition of this heavy cost, the Bihar School Examination Board and its Secretary filed the present intra-court appeal, Letters Patent Appeal No.1640 of 2017, before a Division Bench of the Patna High Court.
What the Court Examined and Decided
The Division Bench, comprising Hon’ble Mr. Justice Jyoti Saran and Hon’ble Mr. Justice Arvind Srivastava, heard the appeal. The judgment is an oral judgment authored by Hon’ble Mr. Justice Jyoti Saran, dated 09.04.2019.
Counsel for the Board argued that while the Single Judge had been harsh on the Board, the writ petitioner had never sought a specific direction for grant of affiliation. According to the Board’s counsel, in the absence of such a prayer, the Court could not have effectively treated the matter as an affiliation dispute and then go on to impose costs grounded on alleged delay in granting affiliation.
The Bench first revisited the factual matrix and the statutory scheme. It noted that the institution had been lawfully running since 1987 with recognition from the State Government. After the NCTE Act came into force, the institution obtained NCTE recognition under the Act. The critical step thereafter, mandated by law, was that the examining body must grant affiliation so that the institution could legally admit students and have them appear in examinations.
The Court relied on Sections 14(6) and 16 of the NCTE Act. It recorded that these provisions contain a “command” requiring the examining body to grant affiliation to institutions whose recognition has been granted by NCTE. In simple terms, once NCTE recognises an institution, the examining body has no real choice except to affiliate it; it cannot delay or deny affiliation on its own notions or internal regulations.
The Division Bench expressed strong disapproval of the way the Board handled the matter. The Court noted that despite NCTE’s recognition order of 03.03.2015 and its clear endorsement to the Board, the Board did not act promptly. The Board’s excuse was that a regulation for grant of affiliation was “under preparation”.
The Court categorically stated that it could not understand how the Board could claim such discretion to delay affiliation when a Parliamentary statute (the NCTE Act) had imposed an obligation to grant affiliation promptly once recognition is granted. This delay caused hardship: the matter “lingered”, students “suffered”, and the institution kept “running around the corridors of the Board” seeking affiliation which should have been given as a matter of course.
However, the Division Bench also carefully examined what exactly had been asked in the original writ petition. It noted that, unfortunately, the substantive relief of a direction to the examining body to grant affiliation had not been sought by the writ petitioner. The institution only asked that its students be permitted to appear in the examination, even though the institution knew that paragraph 3 of the NCTE recognition order clearly barred it from admitting students until affiliation was obtained.
The Court observed that in this sense, the institution itself had “defaulted” in not correctly crafting its prayer. It had approached the Court for examination permission rather than seeking an explicit order for affiliation, despite affiliation being the legal pre-condition.
The Single Judge, seeing the Board’s obstinate conduct in hiding behind the pending regulations, allowed the writ petition and imposed costs of Rs. 5,00,000. The Division Bench accepted that there was “apparently no infirmity” in the Single Judge’s view about the Board’s conduct in delaying affiliation. But the Bench focused on whether, in law, such heavy costs could be imposed in a writ petition which did not contain a direct prayer for affiliation.
The Court referred to the settled legal position that in writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution, the Court can mould relief. Even if a particular relief is not expressly prayed for, it may be granted if it naturally flows from the main relief sought and is consequential to it.
Applying this principle, the Bench held that in a case like the present one, a direction to grant affiliation could be treated as consequential to the main prayer seeking permission for students to appear in the teachers’ training examination. Without affiliation, the students could not be allowed to sit in the examination, because NCTE’s recognition order and Regulation 8(10) of the NCTE (Recognition Norms and Procedure) Regulations, 2014 prohibited admission of students without affiliation.
Therefore, the Division Bench accepted that the Single Judge’s direction in paragraph 10 of the writ judgment — which required the Board to complete the formality of granting affiliation — was legally sound. This direction merely compelled the Board to follow the mandate of Sections 14(6) and 16 of the NCTE Act, which it should have followed anyway.
But when it came to the imposition of costs, the Bench took a different view. It held that since no explicit prayer for affiliation had been made, imposing a heavy cost of Rs. 5,00,000 on the ground that the Board delayed consideration of the affiliation claim was not justified in the “nature of the contest” that was actually before the Single Judge.
The Court emphasised that if the writ petitioner had squarely prayed for affiliation, and the Board had then unjustifiably failed to act, there could be a “possible situation” for imposing such costs. But on the limited prayers actually made, and despite the Court’s power to mould relief, the Bench was “not persuaded” to uphold the cost order, even while it agreed with the direction to complete affiliation.
In the result, the Division Bench “set aside” the judgment of the Single Judge only to the extent of the costs. It allowed the appeal “limited to the extent above”. At the same time, it affirmed and reiterated the direction that the Board must complete its legal obligation of granting affiliation under Sections 14(6) and 16 of the NCTE Act.
The Court finally ordered that the process of affiliation be completed “positively within four weeks” from the date of the appellate judgment, i.e., within four weeks from 09.04.2019. With this modification, the Letters Patent Appeal was allowed.
Why This Judgment Matters
This judgment has two clear messages for teacher training institutions and examining bodies in Bihar.
First, it strongly reaffirms that once NCTE grants recognition to an institution, the Bihar School Examination Board, as an examining body, is legally bound to grant affiliation. The Board cannot delay this by citing internal regulations or administrative processes when a Parliamentary law has already laid down the rule.
Second, the judgment reminds litigants and lawyers that the exact wording of the reliefs sought in a writ petition is important. Although courts have power to mould relief and grant what logically follows from the main prayer, imposition of heavy costs may be harder to justify where the key relief (here, affiliation) is not clearly asked for in the petition.
For students and institutions, the decision gives assurance that recognition by NCTE carries real force and that examining bodies cannot indefinitely hold back affiliation. For government boards, it signals that non-compliance with statutory duties will attract strict judicial scrutiny, even if in this particular case the penalty of Rs. 5,00,000 was removed.
Legal Issues and Answers
Issue: Can the Bihar School Examination Board delay or refuse affiliation to a teacher training institution once NCTE has granted recognition under the NCTE Act, 1993?
Answer: No. Reading Section 14(6) with Section 16 of the NCTE Act, the Court held there is a statutory command requiring the examining body to grant affiliation as a matter of course.
Issue: Was the Single Judge justified in imposing Rs. 5,00,000 as costs on the Board for delay in granting affiliation, when the writ petition did not explicitly seek a direction for affiliation?
Answer: No. While the direction to complete affiliation was upheld, the Division Bench held that, given the specific prayers in the writ petition, the imposition of such costs was unwarranted and therefore set aside.
Issue: Can a High Court in writ jurisdiction mould relief that is not expressly prayed for if it is consequential to the main relief?
Answer: Yes. The Court reiterated that where a relief naturally flows from the main prayer, courts under Article 226 may mould the relief, as was done in directing the Board to complete the affiliation process.
Cases Cited by the Court
- No prior judicial decisions are expressly cited or relied upon in the text of this judgment.
Case Details
Case Number: Letters Patent Appeal No.1640 of 2017 in Civil Writ Jurisdiction Case No.4035 of 2017
Case Title: The Bihar School Examination Board & Anr. v. The State of Bihar & Ors.
Coram: Hon’ble Mr. Justice Jyoti Saran and Hon’ble Mr. Justice Arvind Srivastava
Citation: 2019 (2) PLJR 1149
Date of Judgment: 09.04.2019
Advocates:
- For the Appellants (Bihar School Examination Board and Secretary): Mr. Manish Kumar, Advocate
- For the State of Bihar (Art, Culture and Youth Department): Mr. Ravi Kumar, AC to AAG-13
- For the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE): Mr. Sunil Kumar Singh, Advocate
- For Respondent No. 5 (writ petitioner institution): Mr. Tej Bahadur Singh, Senior Advocate with Mr. Kripa Nand Jha, Advocate
Nature of the Case: Intra-court Letters Patent Appeal against a Single Judge’s order in a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, concerning affiliation of a teacher training institution recognised by NCTE and imposition of costs on the examining body.
Link to Judgment: Click here to access the official Patna High Court judgment
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