The court emphasized the importance of allowing institutions to fulfill regulatory requirements and held that unjustified closure of the webportal by the NCTE led to the unjust placement of institutions under No Admission Category.

JUDGMENT

(Prayer: Writ Petition is filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, to issue a writ of certiorarified mandamus, to call for the records pertaining to the resolution passed in Agenda No.2 of the 54th meeting of the 1st respondent dated 27.04.2022 and the public notice Ref.No.F.NCTE.Reg.1012/11/2021-Reg-Sec-HQ dated 03.05.2022 and to quash the same as illegal and direct the respondent to open their website for submission of PAR for the academic year 2022-2023.)

Common Order

1. These writ petitions have been filed challenging the Public Notice issued by the respondent i.e., National Council for Teacher Education, dated 03.05.2022.

2. The sum and substance of the issue is that, these petitioners are recognised Teacher Education Institutions imparting teacher education at various level. One of the criteria to be followed by these institutions according to the NCTE guidelines is that, the Institutions have to upload the Performance Appraise Report (PAR) for every year or every academic year in the webportal of the NCTE for evaluvating their performance. In this regard, when such insistment was made by the NCTE for the academic year 2018-2019 to make the PAR i.e., Performance Appraisal Report, some of the institutions, not the petitioners, had approached the High Court of Delhi, where, the insistment made by the NCTE, directing the Institutions to make the PAR in the webportal, was stayed for sometime. Ultimately, those cases were decided and the Delhi High Court passed an order, on 25.02.2022 rejecting the plea of those instituions, however, while upholding the decision of the learned Judge of the Delhi High Court, the Division Bench had extended the time for filing of PAR up to 31st March 2022.

3. Still aggrieved over the said order passed by the Division Bench of the Delhi High Court, those institutions preferred Special Leave Petitions before the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India in SLP (Civil) No.5479 of 2022. The Hon'ble Supreme Court rejected the said SLPs along with the connected SLPs by order, dated 01.04.2022, where, the Hon'ble Supreme Court while rejecting the said petitions had modified the time limit given by the Delhi High Court from 31st March 2022 to 2nd April 2022, within which, the institutions had to make the PAR in the webportal for which enabling the institutions to make it, the NCTE was directed to keep the webportal open for one day i.e., upto midnight of 2nd April 2022. Accordingly, the NCTE kept open the webportal till midnight of 2nd April 2022 and thereafter, it was closed.

4. However, the grievance as espoused by the learned counsel appearing for the respective petitioners is that, after coming to know the dead line issued by the Hon'ble Supreme Court, i.e., 02.04.2022 for making the PAR in the webportal, when immediate attempt was made by these institutions, who are already ready with the PAR to be uploaded, in the meanwhile, the webportal of the NCTE was closed by midnight of 2nd April 2022, thereby, these petitioners even though were ready to make uploading the PAR they could not do so because of the closure of the webportal.

5. In the meanwhile, now, by 3rd May 2022, the public notice has been issued by the NCTE, whereby, because of non-uploading of the appraisal, i.e., PAR, these petitioners institutions have been placed under No Admission Category for the academic year 2022-2023, thereby, it has made a virtual closure of the institutions without even withdrawing the recognition of the petitioners granted to the petitioners in the manner known to law, especially under Section 17 of the NCTE Act. Therefore, such kind of closure of the instituions, in other way, could not have been made possible as there is an exhaustive procedure available under the NCTE Act and regulation made thereunder. Therefore, without which since the public notice has been issued, the said public notice which is impugned herein is infirm he submitted.

6. On the other hand, the learned Standing Counsel appearing for th