The judgment established the criteria for determining whether an entity can be considered an authority under Article 12 of the Constitution, emphasizing the need for financial, functional, and administrative control by the government to classify a body as a State within Article 12.

Ranjan Gogoi, J.

1. Will the Delhi Public School Society, a body registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 be amenable to the writ jurisdiction of this Court? This is the question that arises, in the first instance, in the present writ petition. The said question has arisen on the basis of a preliminary objection raised by the Respondents with regard to the maintainability of the writ petition wherein the Petitioner, an employee of the Delhi Public School, Dhaligaon, Bongaigaon, has claimed appointment in the post of accountant which carries a higher scale of pay than what was being drawn by him at the relevant point of time.

2. The Delhi Public School, Dhaligaon, where the Petitioner is employed was set up by virtue of an agreement, executed in the year 1986 by and between the Respondent No. 1. Bongaigaon Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd., and the Delhi Public School Society. The service of the Petitioner who was an employee of the school, prior to its take over by the Delhi Public School Society was continued in the post of Assistant in the pay scale of Rs. 3,200/- to Rs. 4,850/-. The said scale was modified in the year 2000 to Rs. 4,200/- to Rs. 6,350/-. The Petitioner, however, claims to be entitled for appointment in the post of Accountant in the scale of pay of Rs. 6,000/- to Rs. 7,500/-. The repeated requests of the Petitioner for his appointment in the said post and in the scale of pay of Rs. 6,000/- to Rs. 7,500/- not having been answered, this writ petition has been filed.

3. The Respondents have raised a preliminary objection with regard to the maintainability of the writ petition on the ground that the school is run by the Delhi Public School Society which is a body registered under the provisions of the Cooperative Societies Registration Act, 1860. According to the Respondents, the Delhi Public School Society is an independent and autonomous body and no effective control is exercised over the said body either by the Central Government or by the Respondent No. 1. The Delhi Public School Society will, therefore, not come within the definition of State and other authorities as envisaged under Article 12 of the Constitution. The writ petition, accordingly, will not be maintainable. According to the Respondents, the school in question is being run and managed exclusively by the Board of Management constituted under the agreement between the Respondent No. 1 and the Delhi Public School Society which envisages complete autonomy to the school management in all matters including appointment and payment of salaries.

4. A preliminary objection with regard to the maintainability of the writ petition having been raised the court had thought it appropriate to hear arguments on the said issue before proceeding to consider the merits of the claim made in the writ petition. Sri K.P. Sarma, learned senior counsel appearing for the writ Petitioner and Sri K.N. Choudhury and Sri M.K. Choudhury, learned senior counsels appearing for the Respondent Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, have been heard.

5. A huge number of case-laws available on the point at issue has been cited at the Bar by the learned Counsels for the contesting parties. The sheer number of decided case-laws available on the point has made it practically impossible for the court to recite all the precedents that have been cited before it. However, the core of the leading pronouncements on the subject are being dealt with along with Constitution Bench judgment of the Apex Court in the case of Pradeep Kumar Biswas v. Indian Institute of Chemical Biology and Ors. (2002) 5 SCC 111, primarily because in course of consideration of the subject-matter before the Constitution Bench, virtually all the leading precedents available on the subject received attention.

6. A convenient starting point for the discussion that will have to follow could be the decision of the Constitution Bench in Sukhdev Singh and Ors. v. Bhagatram Sardar Singh Raghuvanshi and Anr. (1975) 1 SCC 421.