ORDER :

The facts and circumstances necessitating the filing of this Writ Petition are briefly stated hereunder:

1.1.The petitioner is one of the oldest private engineering colleges in the State of Tamil Nadu and was established in 1957. It was originally founded by a philanthropist and industrialist Late Shri. Karumuttu Thiagarajan Chettiar. The college has been funded by both the Central and State Government and also by the management of the college. In 1987, the college was granted autonomous status and is affiliated with the third respondent university. According to the petitioner, it offers 9 undergraduate programmes, 10 post-graduate programmes and besides doctoral programmes in Engineering, Science and Architecture. The college is a reputed institution in the field of higher education and known for its excellence particularly providing quality education in the field of engineering and science academic courses at both under-graduate and postgraduate levels.

1.2. In the Academic Year 2018-2019, the petitioner college started Master of Architecture course. The second respondent, namely, Council of Architecture, is a Central body akin to enjoying the position as that of All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) in respect of regulating Architecture courses in the country. The course of Architecture being a highly specialized programme, the second respondent is the approving authority, functioning under the legislative guidance of the Architects Act, 1972. The Act 1972 provides various regulations for professional practice of Architecture and also conduct of Architectural Education.

1.3. The second respondent Council, being the regulatory body, has granted approval for commencing M.Arch. course in the petitioner college with a sanctioned intake of 20 students from the academic year 2018-2019. The application of the petitioner college seeking recognition and approval was scrutinized and verified with reference to Council of Architecture (Minimum Standards of Architectural Education for Post-graduate Programme) Guidelines, 2006 (hereinafter referred to as 2006 Guidelines). According to the guidelines that the faculty strength has been defined and prescribed in regard to the conduct of the post-graduate courses in Architecture. As the college fulfilled the criteria of availability of the faculty strength, the approval was granted for conduct of the Post-graduate Courses in Architecture for the Academic Year 2018-2019.

1.4. In terms of the approval by the second respondent, the college commenced the post-graduate programme in Architecture and successfully conducted the courses in its last two Academic Year namely 2018-2019 and 2019-2020. As far as the Academic Year 2020-2021, the petitioner college submitted its application to the second respondent for approval with details of the teaching faculty available on the strength of the department of Architecture consisting of 11 Professor/Associate Professor/Assistant Professor, etc. both full-time and visiting members. The break-up of the Teaching Faculty had also been submitted to the second respondent. The application was submitted before the second respondent on 24.01.2020 along with relevant documents and scrutiny fees. According to the petitioner college, the faculty and the cadre strength shown for this year was higher than it was in the previous years and the teacher-student ratio was also higher than the norms prescribed by the second respondent Council.

1.5. While so, the second respondent issued a show-cause notice dated 03.08.2020 calling upon the college to explain as to why the intake of the post-graduate students should not be reduced from 20 to 10 on the ground that “there is major cadre wise core faculty deficit (1 professor and 1 associate professor). According to the petitioner, the sudden prescription of a different norms which was not prescribed in the earlier years had taken them by surprise and the college was at a loss to understand how the Council could speci