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2011 Supreme(Mad) 3279
2011 WLR 577, 2011 (4) CTC 801
High Court of Judicature at Madras
M.Y.EQBAL & T.S. SIVAGNANAM
K. Shyam Sunder & Others
Versus
The State of Tamil Nadu, rep. by its Chief Secretary to Government & Others
W.P. Nos.12882, 12890, 13019, 13037, 13038, 13227, 13293, 13296, 13345, 13381, 13390, 13547, 16266 of 2011 & W.P.(MD).No.6143 of 2011 & M.P. Nos. 1, 1, 1, 1+2+3+5+6, 1, 1+2, 1+3+4, 1, 1+2+3 to 12, 1, 1+2 & 1 of 2011
Decided on : 18-07-2011
For Petitioners:Mr.K.Balu for M.Gnanasekar, S. Prabakaran for Asuvathaman, M. Alaigai Magal Cauvery, T. Mohan for P.G. Thiyagu, S. Jim Raj Milton, G.R. Prasad for R. Rajaram, V. Selvaraj, P.B. Suresh Babu, G. Purushothaman for A. Suresh Shakthi Murugan, P. Nethaji, R. Viduthalai Senior counsel for K.J. Shankara Subramanian, R. Arunkumar, Advocates.
For the Respondents:P.P. Rao, Senior Counsel, S. Navaneethakrishnan, Advocate General, Gurukrishnakumar, Addl. Advocate General, Subramaniam Prasad, Assisted by E. Sampathkumar, Spl. G.P. (Education), Asuvathaman, R. Sureshkumar, S. Kadarkarai, R. Krishnamoorthy, for V.P. Sengottuvel, N.R. Chandran Senior counsel for V.P. Sengottuvel Chenthoori Pugazendhi, R. Subramaniam, Siddharatha Jeganathan, S. Silambanan, Senior Counsel, K.M. Vijayan, Senior counsel for M/s. Profexs Associates, S. Silambanan, Senior counsel for N. Umapathi, R. Muthukumaraswamy, Senior counsel for U. Bharanidharan, Advocates.
Ratios
a. When an Act was already implemented and its validity was also upheld by the Court, it could not be indirectly repealed through an amending Act under the guise of postponement of its implementation.
b. When an Act was passed for accomplishing an unauthorized purpose, the Court could intervene by lifting the veil, ascertain the real purpose and strike it down.
Headnote:(A)Tamil Nadu Uniform System of School Education Act, 2010-Sec.3-Constitution of India-Art.14-Education-School education-Uniform system-Implementation-Statute-Repeal-Arbitrariness-After a thorough study of the four different streams of education, State framed uniform syllabus and with legislative backing implemented it-Writ petitions challenging such uniform system of education were dismissed and the they were also confirmed by the Supreme Court-For the 1st and 6th standard, uniform system was already implemented and for other classes, it was due for implementation in the current academic year-State had already printed text books for it-Just before the commencement of the present academic year, after the election, new Government assumed power and within a week from the date of such assumption, it decided to postpone the uniform system of education and also brought an amendment to the Act to empower such deferment-Petitioners challenged the deferment and also the validity of the amending Act-High Court passed an interim order staying the operation of such enabling provision and also directed the Government to examine the portion of the text book that had to be deleted or modified and proceed with the implementation of the uniform system as per the directions of the Supreme Court-In the appeal by the State, Supreme Court directed the State to constitute a committee to examine the text books to decide the ways and means of implementing the uniform syllabus-Members of the Committee so constituted gave suggestions regarding the text book and syllabus but the report prepared by the Secretary to Government specified that the Committee recommended the scrapping of the uniform system-Petitioners challenged Sec.3 of the amending Act which empowered the postponement and also the report of the Committee but the State defended it-Held, uniform system of education was already implemented and lot of public money was already spent to implement it for other classes and text books were already printed-Amendment Act had the effect of unsettling the settled position and against the directions of the Court and so unconstitutional-Amended provision gives a blanket power to postpone the uniform syllabus even to the classes for which it was already implemented-Report of the committee did not reflect the views of the individual members of the Committee-Supreme Court directed the constitution of a committee to find ways for implementing the uniform syllabus and not to scrap it-Writ petitions were allowed and the provision enabling the postponement of the implementation of the uniform system of education was struck down as unconstitutional-Series of directions were issued regarding the implementation of the uniform system of education.
(B)Constitution of India-Art.14-Legislation-Implementation-Postponement-Repeal-Constitutionality-When an Act was already implemented and its validity was also upheld by the Court, it could not be indirectly repealed through an amending Act under the guise of postponement of its implementation.
An Amending Act which has the effect of repeal of the parent Act under the guise of postponement of its implementation, when in fact, the parent Act has already been implemented, though partially, the Amending Act has to be held to be an arbitrary piece of legislation which does not satisfy the touchstone of Article 14 of the Constitution of India. In other words, the State has sought to achieve indirectly what could not be achieved directly as it was prevented from doing so in view of the judgment of the Division Bench, upholding the validity of the parent Act. Para 42
(C)Constitution of India-Art.14, 226-Judicial review-Act-Constitutionality-Lifting the veil-Ostensible purpose-Court-Jurisdiction- When an Act was passed for accomplishing an unauthorized purpose, the Court could intervene by lifting the veil, ascertain the real purpose and strike it down.
If a law was passed only ‘ostensibly’, but was in truth and substance, one for accomplishing an unauthorised object, the Court, it was held would be entitled to tear the veil and the declaration by the legislature would not preclude a judicial examination. Para 47
C J & T.S. SIVAGNANAM, J. 1. About one crore twenty three lakh school children of Standards I to X in the State of Tamil Nadu are without any textbooks and syllabus, and along with their parents, they are in a dilemma as to whether the Uniform Syllabus, which was to commence as per the Tamil Nadu Uniform System of School Education Act, 2010, would be postponed because of the amendment brought in the Act by the new Government immediately after coming into power, and also as to whether the textbooks as per the new syllabus got printed and made ready by spending about 200 crore rupees of public money by the erstwhile Government would be destroyed or disposed of.
2. Before arriving at any conclusion as directed by the Supreme Court, we have to first discuss the brief history of the legislation. For the purpose of achieving social justice and quality education, the erstwhile Government enacted the Samacheer Kalvi Thittam, i.e., Uniform System of School Education Act, 2010 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act of 2010') and introduced common syllabus, textbooks and examination for the four streams of education prevalent in the State. It is to be noted here that in the State of Tamil Nadu, there are four streams of school education namely, State Board Schools, Matriculation Schools, Oriental Schools and Anglo- Indian Schools and these schools have separate syllabus, textbooks and scheme of examinations and are under the control of different Boards, as a result of which the standard of education in these schools is not uniform. Therefore, the Government was of the view that it is indispensable to evolve a uniform system of school education in the State to ensure social justice and provide quality education in all the schools in the State. For this purpose, the Government constituted a committee under the Chairmanship of Dr. S. Muthukumaran, Former Vice-Chancellor of Bharathidasan University, to examine the possibilities of implementing a Uniform System of School Education. The Committee submitted its recommendations to the Government. The Government constituted a one Man Committee with Thiru.M.P.Vijayakumar I.A.S. (Retired) to look into the recommendations of the Dr.S.Muthukumaran Committee. The one Man Committee submitted its recommendations to the Government. It appears that a team of educationists under the Chairmanship of Thiru.M.P.Vijayakumar, I.A.S., visited the States of Kerala, Karnataka, Gujarat and Maharastra and reviewed the education system in those States and submitted its report on various matters regarding the school education. The Government, on a consideration of these reports, accepted the idea that all schools in the State should have a common syllabus, textbooks and examination system as only this will ensure social justice and provide quality education and accordingly enacted the Act 8 of 2010.
3. The Private Schools' Association from various districts challenged the aforesaid Act of 2010 on the ground that the Act interfered with the right of children to choose their preferred system of education and also on various other grounds. The vires of the aforesaid Act of 2010 has been upheld by a Division Bench of this Court by its judgment dated 30.4.2010 in W.P. Nos.3051 of 2010 and batch of cases (hereinafter referred to as 'the Division Bench judgment' for the sake of brevity).
4. The aggrieved parties moved the Supreme Court by filing Special Leave Petitions, which were ultimately dismissed and the judgment of the Division Bench attained finality.
5. Section 3 of the Act of 2010 needs to be quoted herein below :-
"3. (1) Every school in the State shall follow the common syllabus and textbooks as may be specified by the Board for each subject,-
(a) in Standards I and VI, commencing from the academic year 2010-2011;
(b) in Standards II to V and Standards VII to X from the academic year 2011-2012.
(2) Subject to the provisions of sub-section (1), every school in the State shall,-
(a) follow the norms fixed by t
