Judgment

S.R. DAS J. : These three appeals, filed by the State of Bombay, with a certificate granted by the Bombay High Court are directed against the Judgement and Order pronounced by that High Court on the 15th February 1954, on three Civil Applications under Article 226. By that Judgment and Order the High Court held that the circular order No. SSN 2054 (a) issued by the State of Bombay, Education Department on the 6th January 1954, was bad in that it contravened the provisions of Article 29 (2) and Article 337 and directed the issue of a Writ prohibiting State from enforcing the Order against the authorities of Barnes High School established and run by the Education Society of Bombay (hereinafter referred as the Society)

2. The Society, which is the first respondent in Appeal No. 64 of 1954, is a Joint Stock Company incorporated under the Indian Companies Act, 1913. The other two respondents in that appeal - Ven ble Archdeacon A.S.H. Johnson and Mrs. Glynne Howell are members and Directors of the Society. The Ven ble Archdeacon A. S. H. Johnson is also the Secretary of the Society. Both of them are citizen Community of India and are members of the Anglo-Indian Community. The mother tongue of these respondents as of other members of the Anglo-Indians community is English.

3. In the State of Bombay there are in all 1403 Secondary Schools 1285 of these Schools impart education through the medium of some language other than English. The remaining 118 Schools have adopted English as the medium of instruction. Thirty out of these 118 Schools are Anglo-Indian Schools. In these thirty schools there are three thousand Anglo-Indian students forming 37 per cent of the total number of students receiving instruction in those Anglo-Indian Schools. The rest 63 per cent consist of non-Anglo-Indian students.

4. In furtherance of its object the Society in 1925 established and since then has been conducting and running a school known as Barnes High School at Deolali in Nasik District in the State of Bombay. The School is a recognized Anglo-Indian School having Primary, Secondary and High School classes. The School receives considerable aid from the State. The total number of students in the School in December 1953 was 415 out of which 212 were Anglo-Indians and the remaining 203 belonged to other Indian communities.

In all the classes in the said School English is used as the medium of instruction and has been so used since the inception of the School. The entire staff of the School consists of 17 teachers who, with the exception of one, are trained and qualified to teach only in English the exception being the teacher who teaches Hindi which is the second language taught in that school.

5. On the 16th December 1953, the Inspector of Anglo-Indian School Bombay State and Educational Inspector, Greater Bombay, sent a circular letter to the Headmaster of Barnes High School intimating that the Government had under consideration the issue of orders regulating admission to schools in which the medium of instruction was English.

The order under consideration were stated to be on the following lines, namely (1) that from the next School year admissions to English medium School should only be confined to children belonging to the Anglo-Indian and European Communities, and (2) that those pupils who, proper to the issue of the Orders, were studying in recognized primary or Secondary English medium schools, could continue to do so. The letter in conclusion advised the Head master not to make any admission for the academic year beginning from January 1954 of pupils other than Anglo Indians or Europeans pending further, orders which, it was said, would issue shortly.

6. The contemplated order came on the 6th January, 1954 in the shape of circular No. SSN 2054 (a) headed "Admissions to Schools teaching through the medium of English." In paragraphs 1, 2, and 3 of this circular reference was made to the development of the policy of the Government regarding the mediu