Smt. NISHITA MHATRE, J.:-

Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith, by consent of parties.

The petitioners have filed the present petition being aggrieved by the cancellation of the Letter of Intent issued to them for starting an Ayurved College and Hospital at Ausa, Dist.-Latur. The petitioners also have a grievance that a similarly situated college run by a Member of Parliament has been granted permission despite several deficiencies found by the Central Council for Indian Medicine (hereinafter referred to as CCIM for short).

3. The petitioner no.1 trust is registered under the Bombay Public Trust Act, 1950, is an education society. The petitioner no.1 society has been recognized as a minority institution by the Government on 31/3/2001. Since the petitioner trust desired to start an Ayurved College and Hospital at Ausa, it was necessary for it to obtain prior permission from the Central Government in accordance with the Indian Medicine Central Council Act, 1970 (hereinafter referred to as the Act of 1970). The petitioners applied in accordance with Section 13-A of the Act of 1970 for setting up the Ayurved College. The petitioners also submitted a demand draft of Rs.3.5 lakhs along with their application, as required under the Act and Regulations framed thereunder. The application, dated 26/4/2006 was submitted to respondent no.2 i.e. the Secretary to the Government of India, Department of Ayurved, Yoga, Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (Ayush). The Central Government issued a letter to the CCIM requesting it to inspect the new college and to convey to the petitioners the deficiencies, if any, for the petitioners to rectify the same before permission was granted to commence the college with an intake capacity of 50 students for the B.A.M.S. Course. On 27th April, 2006, the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences consented to provisionally affiliate the college to the Health University for the proposed admission capacity of 50 students. At the same time, the Ministry of Health requested the CCIM, to inspect the college to ascertain whether the infrastructure available was in accordance with the Act and the Regulations framed there under. The Central Government directed the CCIM to include atleast one member from the panel of experts provided by the Central Government in the visitation team.

4. Accordingly, the committee, visited the site to inspect the infrastructure available. The committee recommended to the Central Government that a Letter of Intent for the intake capacity of 50 students should be issued to the petitioners. The petitioners were informed on 12/10/2006 by the Central Government that the Letter of Intent was being issued to the petitioners subject to their fulfilment of the shortcomings which were listed in detail. The petitioners submitted their compliance report on 20/1112006. Thereafter, on 181112007, the CCIM informed the petitioners that they proposed to visit the site on 29/112007 to verify the compliance report. After verification, a meeting was held by the education Committee (Ayurveda) of the CCIM on 4/2/2007. The education committee decided to recommend to the Government of India that permission should be issued to the petitioners to start the college with an intake capacity of 50 students, taking into consideration the compliance report and the verification by the committee.

5. However, on 2/212007, even before the meeting of the CCIM, a letter was issued by the Central Government to the petitioners intimating them that the Letter of Intent issued on I 211012006 was cancelled. The reason given for cancellation of the Letter of Intent was that there was no fully functional 100 bed Ayurved Hospital as required by the CCIM Regulations. The Central Government also mentioned that there were several other shortcomings which had not been fulfilled by the proposed institution and therefore, it was found necessary to cancel the Letter of Intent.

6. The main grievance of the petitioners in this petitio

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