Ramachandran Nair, J.

Kerala has 12600 and odd schools in the Government; Aided and Unaided sector imparting education mostly in Malayalam under the Kerala syllabus which is not upto the standards of education under the CBSE/ICSE syllabus which is in English. Very few Central Schools are established by the Central Government in big cities mainly for the children of Central Government employees through the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangham and a few schools following CBSE/ICSE syllabus are run by the Armed Forces and few large Central Public Sector Undertakings in their locations. The limited and restricted availability of facility for schooling in English medium under CBSE/ICSE syllabus and consequent public demand for such schools led to establishment of large number of CBSE/ICSE-private schools, which as of now is over 900 in the State. The more intelligent and ambitious lot of students prefer CBSE/ICSE syllabus and the less clever join schools following Kerala syllabus. The demand for CBSE/ICSE schools in the State is on the increase and the same is evident from the fact that more and more CBSE schools are being set up by missionaries, private trusts and other agencies in small towns and even in village areas in Kerala. Even though the State Government was rather liberal and was not discouraging setting up of quality CBSE/ICSE schools by private managements, for the last 6-7 years, the Government turned hostile and did not grant NOC for new schools for five years. After protracted litigation in the High Court and the Supreme Court, 169 out of 250 unaided schools have been granted NOC in the recent past by the State Government for seeking affiliation from the CBSE/ICSE Boards. Many of the school managements in these cases are in second and third round of litigations against the State Government for several years for getting NOC which is the requirement for getting affiliation under the CBSE/ICSE Affiliation Byelaws. The position canvassed by all the school managements althrough the litigation is that they have no contest against the norms of CBSE/ICSE Affiliation Byelaws and all what they are opposing is State Government's Policies and norms which are in conflict with the Affiliation Byelaws of CBSE/ICSE Boards for granting NOC. The first guidelines for NOC was issued by the Government as per G.O.(Ms.)No.18/88/G.Edn. dated 12.01.1988. However, when G.O.(P).No.107/07/G.Edn. dated 13.6.2007 was issued by the Government limiting consideration of applications for grant of NOC to five northern districts in the State, this court allowed Writ Petitions filed by managements vacating the Government Order, against which Government filed SLP Nos.11666-11667/2009 before the Honourable Supreme Court. By the time the said SLPs. were taken up, the Government framed new policy for grant of NOC vide G.O.(MS).No.137/2011/G.Edn. dated 10.6.2011 which rendered the SLPs. virtually infructuous. The Honourable Supreme Court, therefore, recorded the statement of the Government that NOCs. will be issued to eligible school managements satisfying norms and conditions fixed by CBSE/ICSE Boards subject to further guidelines that may be issued by the Government and disposed of the SLPs. filed by the State directing orders to be passed within three months from the date of the order. However, Government issued G.O. (Ms).No.202/11/G.Edn. dated 7.10.2011 framing completely new set of guidelines prescribing norms for grant of NOC to new schools for affiliation and for existing schools for renewal of affiliation required in every five years under the CBSE/ICSE Affiliation Bye-laws. Since the central challenge in all the writ petitions is this Government Order running into three pages, we feel instead of extracting the objectionable clauses of the Order challenged by the petitioners which is produced as Ext.P16 in W.A. 1042/2012 filed by the State, it would be desirable to attach full text of this Government Order to make it part of the judgment and we, there