Judgement

P. JAGANMOHAN REDDY, J.:- 22. Writ Petitions were filed in the High Court of Madras by publishers of text-books for Government Schools, Dist Board and Municipal Council Schools challenging the directions of the Deputy Secretary to Government, Education Department, contained in his D. O. letter No. 54582/E5/69, Education, dated 12th August, 1969, addressed to District Collectors and Local Board authorities that they should intimate to the publishers of the books which are prescribed for the year 1969-70 that after the end of the School year they will no longer be prescribed. A Division Bench of the High Court allowed the Writ Petitions. From this decision, 19 appeals are before us by certificate. It appears that the Government of Tamil Nadu in furtherance of its policy to nationalise text-books for schools, was intending to publish them through the Tamil Nadu Text Books Corporation pursuant to which it had issued the impugned D.O. letter. The writ petitions which are the subject matter of these appeals raise similar grounds and we will adopt the averments in writ petition No. 768/70 as being typical of the other writ petitions, which course was also adopted by the High Court.

2. The respondent in that appeal alleged that the impugned D.O. letter giving the aforesaid directions is illegal and void as being contrary to the Madras Educational Rules and the Text-Book Committee Rules made by the Governor of Tamil Nadu in pursuance of the powers vested under Article 162 of the Constitution and affected respondent s fundamental rights under Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution inasmuch as his business of publishing Text-Books has been seriously jeopardised and has practically been brought to a stand-still; that it is not open to the Government of Tamil Nadu to act contrary to the general rules made under Article 162 of the Constitution; that the policy of nationalisation of the text-books is itself illegal and void; that the principles of natural justice have been violated in that under the rules once text-books have been approved and selected for the schools and have been prescribed, they remained current for three years, as such to cancel the continuance for the remaining period without notice and without hearing would result in heavy financial loss; and that as under Article 19(6) of the Constitution the trade carried out by the private citizens can be restricted only in pursuance of a law which enables the State to have a monopoly of that trade, it will not be open to the State to set up a Text Books Society to have a monopoly over the text-books trade without the authority of law and an executive order purporting to do this would be violative of Article 19 (1)(f) and (g) of the Constitution. It was further averred that even if it is assumed that Article 19 (6) does not apply to their case, their fundamental rights cannot be restricted only for the purpose of enabling a State or the Corporation owned or controlled by the State to carry on the particular trade to the exclusion of private citizens. The High Court disposed of the Writ Petitions merely on the ground that even though the Madras Education Rules like the Text Book Committee rules have been issued in exercise of the administrative powers vested in the Government, the inhibition against change of selected text-books within a period of three years is not for the purposes of safeguarding the interest of the publishers but is conceived in public interest, namely, that the institution concerned should not be at liberty to change the books every year which may involve hardships to the students. Nonetheless it was of the view that a publisher of text-books could proceed on the basis that he has some sort of assurance that once his books have been selected and prescribed as text books, those books will remain to be so prescribed for three years on which expectation he may, from a business point of view, have the requisite number of text-books printed in advance or stock t