Adherence to the schedule fixed by the Supreme Court for B.Ed admissions is crucial for fair and transparent admission process in B.Ed colleges.

JUDGMENT :

The present writ petition has been preferred for issuance of direction upon the respondent-authorities particularly the respondent nos. 2, 4 & 5 to allow the petitioners – B.Ed Institutes/Teachers Training Colleges to take admission of already registered students with Jharkhand Combined Entrance Competitive Examination Board (hereinafter referred to as “JCECEB”) in the B.Ed courses for the batch/session 2021-2023, who have passed their qualifying exams i.e., Bachelor’s Degree in the applicable subjects after 27.09.2021 till 17.05.2022, otherwise the said students despite being eligible for getting admitted in the B.Ed course will lose one year without any fault on their part. The petitioners have further prayed for allowing those eligible students also to be admitted in the said course who have not been able to register themselves in pursuance of advertisement notice dated 03.09.2020 issued by respondent no. 5 – JCECEB.

2. Mr. Navin Kumar, the learned counsel for the petitioners, submits that that the petitioners are self financed B.Ed colleges/Teachers Training Colleges and have been granted permanent recognition by the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) for conducting B.Ed course. The NCTE has framed National Council for Teacher Education (Recognition Norms & Procedure) Regulations, 2014 (hereinafter referred to as “Regulations 2014”) prescribing the norms and standards for Bachelor of Education programme leading to grant of the Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) Degree in which under regulation 3.3 (Admission Procedure), it has been provided that the admission shall be taken on merit on the basis of marks obtained in the qualifying examination and/or in the entrance examination or by any other selection process as per the policy of the State Government/UT Administration and the University. In absence of any policy made by the State Government or the University, the petitioners-colleges were conducting selection process based on merit as per marks obtained in the qualifying examination and accordingly, the students were being admitted in the Institutes/Colleges.

3. It is further submitted that the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of “College of Professional Education & Ors. Vs. State of Uttar Pradesh & Ors.” reported in (2013) 2 SCC 721 has fixed the schedule for admission in B.Ed course for the Academic Session 2012-2013 and subsequent years. Moreover, the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of “Maa Vaishno Devi Mahila Mahavidyalaya Vs. State of Uttar Pradesh & Ors.” reported in (2013) 2 SCC 617 has also adopted and reiterated the schedule fixed in the case of “College of Professional Education” (supra) and has further issued a direction as contained in paragraph 87.4 that the schedule prescribed for recognition and affiliation shall be mandatory for any authority/person/council/ committee and any non-compliance would amount to violating the order of Hon’ble Supreme Court.

4. It is further submitted that due to outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Higher & Technical Education, Government of Jharkhand vide letter no. 799 dated 15.07.2021 decided to prepare merit list for admission in recognized B.Ed colleges for the Session 2021-2023 purely on the basis of marks obtained by the students in qualifying exam i.e., Bachelor’s Degree in the applicable subjects with qualifying marks and JCECEB was authorized to prepare the merit list on the aforesaid basis without taking any examination. It was also mentioned in the said letter that the appearing batch students of final year/semester of Bachelor degree qualifying examination would also be allowed to apply for the Session 2021-2023, but at the time of preparation of state level merit list, appearing batch students would upload marksheet of Bachelor degree with minimum qualifying marks. Pursuant to the said decision, online applications were invited from e