1. These writ petitions challenge the provisions of the Kerala University Act, 1974 (Act 17 of 1974). The petitioners are the owners of private colleges, inasmuch as the legal title to the colleges vests in them. The colleges receive aid out of State funds. As observed by a Full Bench of this Court in V. Rev. Mother Provincial v. State of Kerala (1969 KLT. 749), although the legal title to the colleges vests in the petitioners it may be difficult to predicate that the beneficial interest in the properties of the colleges also vests in them.

2. The petitioner in O. P. No. 3801 of 1974 is the Archbishop of Trivandrum, who owns three colleges; the one in O. P. No. 3871 of 1974 is the Bishop of Quilon owning two colleges; the one in O. P. No. 3948 of 1974 is the Vicar-General of the Archdiocese of Changanacherry owning two colleges; the one in O. P. No. 4025 of 1974 is the Metropolitan of Marthomite Church owning four colleges; and the one in O.P. No. 4065 of 1974 is the Superior of the Christ Monastery of the C.M.I. Fathers, Irinjalakuda, owning one college.

3. This is the second or perhaps the third round of battle against the attempt of the State to control and regulate the management and administration of the private colleges of the State: The first round was fought in the reference made in the advisory jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in In re Kerala Education Bill, 1957 (AIR. 1958 S.C. 956). The Supreme Court sustained some of the provisions of the Bill proposed to be enacted as an Act and held that certain Sections offended, in particular, Art.30(1) of the Constitution. After many years, the proposed legislation took shape as the Kerala University Act, 1969. Its vires was challenged before a Full Bench of this Court. It was ruled in V Rev Mother Provincial v. State of Kerala (1969 KLT. 749) that certain Sections of the Act were bad as contravening Art. l?(1)(f), and also Art.30(1) of the Constitution, as far as minority institutions are concerned. The decision was confirmed by the Supreme Court (vide State of Kerala v. Mother Provincial (AIR 1970 S. C. 2079). Then came the University Act of 1974, herein impugned.

4. Arguments were addressed only in the five writ petitions that we have mentioned. No arguments were addressed in O.P No. 4004 of 1974, and its fate was left to rest upon the decision of these specified writ petitions.

5. Art.30(1) of the Constitution guarantees to all minorities, whether based on religion or language, the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice. Art.30(2) forbids discrimination against a minority institution in the matter of granting aid. Although the Article, unlike some of the other Articles of the Constitution dealing with fundamental rights is couched in terms absolute and unqualified, it has now been settled by the decisions of the highest Court that such is not its effect or purport, and that regulations on the right in the interest of the efficiency of instruction, discipline health, sanitation, and the like, are permissible. We might well quote the observations of the Supreme Court in Rev. Sidhajbhai Sabhai and others v State of Bombay and another ([1963] 3 S.C.R. 837) = AIR. 1963 S.C. 540. Observed the Court:

"Unlike Art.19, the fundamental freedom under cl. (1) of Art.30, is absolute in terms; it is not made subject to any reasonable restrictions of the nature the fundamental freedoms enunciated in Art.19 may be subjected to. All minorities, linguistic or religious have by Art.30(1) an absolute right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice; and any law or executive direction which seeks to infringe the substance of that right under Art.30(1) would, to that extent, be void. This, however, is not to say that it is not open to the State to impose regulations upon the exercise of this right. The fundamental freedom is to establish and to administer educational institutions: it is a right to establish and administer what