ORDER

Civil Appeal No. 2194 of 1996

1. Mata Gujri Memorial Medical College is the appellant in this appeal, assailing the judgment of the Patna High Court. The appellant is a trust which has set up the medical college in question and having failed in its attempt to obtain necessary affiliation from the university, it had approached the High Court by filing a petition under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution. Before the High Court its prayer was that the State of Bihar may be directed to grant approval to the proposal of the affiliation of the college, and the university called B.N. Mandal University, Madhepura to affiliate the said college to the university. The prayer to direct the State Government to accord approval emanated because of the power of the State Government under the Bihar State Universities Act, 1976, more particularly, the second proviso to Section 21 (2) of the Act. The aforesaid provisions may be extracted hereinbelow in extenso:

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"21. Powers and duties of the Senate.-(I) * * (2) In particular and without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing powers, the Senate shall exercise the following powers and perform the following duties, namely(a) of making the statutes and amending or repealing the same;

(b) of considering the statutes and the regulations, and amending or repealing the same;

(c) of passing resolution after having considered the annual report, the annual account, the financial estimates and audit report on such accounts;

(d) of exercising the powers for the purpose of control in colleges and tols, and of superintendence which include affiliation and disaffiliation of colleges:

Provided that affiliation or disaffiliation of colleges or tols (sic) shall not take effect, unless it is approved by the State Government:

Provided further that no medical college shall be affiliated except without the prior approval of the State Government.

Before granting such an approval, the State Government shall consider the financial viability of the college, the nature and form of the proposed management of the college, the viability of the academic standard and all other conditions which are likely to have adverse effect on the interests of students admitted to such a college;

(e) of instituting and conferring such degrees, titles, diplomas and other academic distinctions as may be prescribed by the statutes; and (j) of exercising such other powers and perfonning such other duties as are conferred or imposed upon it by this Act or the statutes."

2. The High Court in the impugned judgment being of the opinion that the prior approval of the State Government is sine qua non for grant of affiliation to the medical college by the University in question and being further of the opinion that the State Government has rightly refused the approval to the grant of the affiliation, dismissed the writ petition. During the pendency of this writ petition in this Court, when the appellant came up by filing a special leave petition, this Court permitted the appellant to implead the Medical Council of India (hereinafter called "MCI" for short) by its order dated 9-12-1994 and also the Central Government by order dated 11-7-1995. Even before inclusion of the Central Government as a party-respondent, the Court had called upon the appellant to approach the Central Government for 1 grant of recognition/affiliation under the regulations framed by MCI and it was further stated that in case any representation is made to the Central Government then the Central Government will get the same examined from MCI and then final decision may be taken in accordance with the Regulations framed by the Council. When the matter was listed on 18-1-1996, the Court a not being able to dispose of the matter at that stage, granted leave but, since one of the contentions of the appellant was that the Institution is a minority Institution under Article 30 of the Constitution and, therefore, the provisions of the Education Act may have no application, it wa