A writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution is not maintainable against a private minority educational institution that is not an agency or instrumentality of the State.

( 1 ) IMRAN Abass and Rehman Abbass, the two minor sons of Smt. Mahboob Zahra were studying in a Christian Minority Institution, namely, Cathedral School, Lucknow, in the last academic session i. e. 1995-96. Imran Abbass was student of class VIC while Rehman Abbass was student of class VID.

( 2 ) IT is said that petitioner no. 1, namely, Imran Abbass due to ailment could not appear in the final examinations which were held in the month of March as a consequence whereof he was declared failed. A request for promoting the petitioner no. 1 in the next class was made as the petitioner no. 1 could not appear in the examination on account of ill-health but the same was turned down. It is alleged that opposite party no. 3 was annoyed with the father of the petitioner, namely, Syed Ehsan Abbass, Advocate, who was appearing as a Counsel for opposite party No. 3 in various case pending in the Court of law. He had made a demand for payment of his fee-bills and for this reason his son, Imran Abbass was denied promotion. It is further stated that to create a ground to support his illegal act of not giving promotion to the petitioner, opposite party no 3 lodged a false FIR on 24-4-1996 against Syed Eshan Abbass alleging therein that on 24-4-1996 he entered in the office of the principal and demanded that his son be promoted to Class VII or a Transfer Certificate be issued showing that his son had passed Class VI and on being refused to accede to the offer made by Syed Ehsan Abbass, he misbehaved with the principal and physically assaulted the office-in-charge and further threatened him with dire consequences.

( 3 ) ON 8/05/1996 the opposite party no. 3 terminated the studies of Imran Abbas and Rehan Abbass sons of Syed Ehsan Abbass and their names were struck from the Rolls of the School. Further by the said order, Syed Ehsan Abbass was declared as a persona non-grata having no authority to enter the school premises.

( 4 ) IMRAN Abbass and Rehan Abbass have now approached this Court through their mother Smt. Mahboob Zahra with the prayer to quash the aforesaid impugned order and issue a Writ of Mandamus commanding the opposite parties to readmit the petitioners in their respective classes and further to promote petitioner no. 1 from Class VI to Class VII.

( 5 ) A counter affidavit has been filed by opposite party no. 3, Mr. Sebastian Mathias, Principal Cathedral School stating therein that the Cathedral School is a private minority institution not performing any statutory function and is only engaged in a social work i. e. in imparting education to the children hence this writ petition is not maintainable as by no stretch of imagination the school can fall within the meaning of Article 12 of the Constitution. He has further justified his action in passing the impugned order. It is said in the counter affidavit that in the course of education of children, a parent is an important and integral part of the process but when a parent conducts himself in a manner unbefitting his role as Syed Ehsan Abbass has done then the process is bound to collapse and the educational institution is bound to see that such situations are not allowed to continue in future.

( 6 ) ON 12th July, 96 when the matter came up for hearing, to satisfy my judicial conscience, I called upon the learned Members of the Bar to assist and address this Court on the question of maintainability of a writ petition against a society running minority educational institution. Initially till the arguments were concluded and judgment was reserved, may be due to rush of work in the month of July, no Member of the Bar came forward to address the Court on the question of maintainability of the writ petition except Sri Rathore, learned Counsel for the respondent No. 3. Civil Misc. Application No. 2616 (w) of 1996 was moved by Ku. Mridul Rakesh on behalf of Catholic Education Society, Lucknow, praying therein that the abovenamed society may be permitted to make humble submi