JUDGMENT

V. R. KRISHNA IYER, J. :—The core controversy in this appeal by special leave rages round the legality of the selection of Readers by the Allahabad University. The fortunes of the litigation pending for seven years, have been fluctuating from court to court. The fine line of distinction between internal autonomy for educational bodies and insulation of their operations from judicial interference on the one hand and the constitutional obligation of the court to examine the legality of academic actions and correct clear injustices on the other is jurisprudentially real and the present appeal illustrates the demarcation between the two positions. While legal shibboleths like "hand-off universities" and meticulous forensic invigilation of educational organs may both be wrong, a balanced approach of leaving universities in their internal functioning well alone to a large extent, but striking at illegalities and injustices, if committed by however high an authority, educational or other, will resolve the problem raised by counsel before us in this appeal from a judgment of the Division Bench of the High Court.

2. Once we recognise the basic yet simple proposition that no islands