JUDGMENT :

Dama Seshadri Naidu, J.

Introduction:

Emancipation through Education:

A boy began the battle. It was in 1856. Branded by birth as a Dalit, he wanted to join a school in Bombay Presidency. It raised a storm, a storm of indignation and disbelief. And that boy’s battle for admission has changed the course of Indian educational history. But the battle has not ceased, it seems. It continues in one form or another—in the arena of courts, though.

2. It was in June 1856 that boy applied for admission into a government school in Dharwar, Bombay Presidency. The incident had created a furore in the administration; that ultimately attracted the attention of the rulers. The East India Company was forced to formulate an educational policy. That policy mandated that if the schools were maintained by the government, the ‘classes of its subjects’ were to be given admission without any distinction of caste, religion, and race. But that policy did not translate into action. Until 1872, education remained the privilege of the few. That year, Mahatma Phule contested the discrimination in access to education before the Hunter Commission. Then came the Caste Disabilities Act of 1872, the first enactment in that direction.[K. C. Chalam, Caste-based Reservations and Human Development in India; (Sage Publications, 2007) 94]

3. From then on, we have travelled far, but not far enough. Still access to education depends, among other things, on the student’s economic strength. Socially and economically speaking, the weaker the student is, the farther he is from quality education. Here is a case that concerns the right of, again, a few down-trodden students for recompense on their educational expenditure.

Facts:

4. There are 26 petitioners. They were all students then, pursuing their engineering under-graduation courses in the second respondent college. That college (“Sanghvi College”) is a Gujarati Linguistic Minority institute—a non-aided professional institution. As a linguistic minority institution, Sanghvi College has its own admission procedure. Every academic year, the college admits students, monitored by a Government-appointed Committee. That Committee— Pravesh Niyantran Committee—is headed by a retired High Court Judge.

5. To get admitted into any engineering college in the State of Maharashtra, the student must take a Common Entrance Test (”CET”) held by the State Government. Once the ranks are determined in the CET, it is open for the students to participate in a Common Admission Procedure ("CAP") held by the Government and secure admission in one of the colleges that are part of this CAP. On the other hand, certain other institutions—for example, minority institutions—have not become part of the CAP; instead, they have their own admission procedure, approved by Pravesh Niyantran Committee. Students who do not desire to participate in CAP may apply to any of these colleges having their own admission procedure and secure admission. True, even these students, too, must have, as a precondition, secured rank in CET.

6. Sanghvi College is one such institute with its own admission procedure. And the petitioners had their admission into this college, without their participating in CAP.

7. In the last few years, the Government has implemented the policy of fee reimbursement to SC, ST, and OBC students pursuing their professional courses in Maharashtra. But by a Government Resolution (“GR”), dt.27/02/2013, the Government restricted this benefit of fee reimbursement to only those SC, ST, and OBC students that had taken admission through the CAP.

8. Assailing the GR, dt.27.02.2013, the petitioners have filed this Writ Petition.

Procedural History:

9 . On 27th March 2019, a Division Bench, to which one of us (Dama Seshadri Naidu J) is a party, took up the matter for hearing. It noticed that coequal Division Benches of this Court, either at Bombay or at othe