OREDR : - This is an application by the Amrit Bazar Patrika, Limited, a Private Limited company which owns the Amrita Bazar Patrika Press situate at Allahabad and publishes the English daily newspaper known as the Amrita Bazar Patrika, for the issue of an order, direction or a writ in the nature of a writ of Mandamus commanding the respondent No.1, the Board of High School and Intermediate Education, U.P., to allow the petitioner to have access to the results of the High School and Intermediate Examinations held by the said Board this year after the same have been passed by the Results Committee of the Board with privileges, facilities, conveniences, and opportunities which have been made available by the said Board to the respondent No.2, the Newspaper Limited which publishes the daily Newspaper called the Leader.

The petition also prays for the issue of an order, direction, or a writ in the nature of a writ of certiorari to the respondent No.1 to transmit the record of the correspondence and resolutions bearing on the subject or the publication of the aforesaid result of the year 1955 to this Court to the end that the decision of the respondent No.1 embodied in the letter dated 3-5-1955 be quashed. The petition further prays for tile passing of any other order or direction that may be found to be appropriate and suitable in accordance with the exigencies of the case.

2. The petition urges that on several occasions in the past the results of the High School and Intermediate Examinations held by respondent No.1 have been published in the columns of the Amrita Bazar Patrika and that on 18-2-1955, the Board enquired from the petitioner whether it was ready and willing to undertake the publication of the results. The petitioner signified its consent and thereupon on 7-3-1955 the Results Sub-Committee of the Board met to consider the acceptance of the newspapers to publish the results and the representative of the Amrita Bazar Patrika viz., Sri S.N. Chanda was invited to attend the meeting.

It is alleged that Sri Chanda accepted all the terms and conditions proposed by the Board and agreed to publish the results and the Sub-Committee assured the representative that its final decision would be communicated in due course. It is said that with a view to carry out the work of publication with the requisite degree of efficiency and due promptitude the petitioner incurred substantial expenses in making preparation and collecting materials as set out in the affidavit.

The respondent No.1, the Board, failed to communicate its decision for about two weeks and a reminder was sent on or about 25-3-1955 to the Board to which the Board replied that the matter was fully considered at its meeting on 11-4-1955. On 3-5-1955, an intimation was received by the petitioner from the Secretary of the Board to the effect that the Board refused to allow the petitioner to publish the results in the columns of the Amrita Bazar Patrika.

The petitioner urges that the Board is under a statutory obligation to make the results available to the public after they have been passed by the Results Committee and after they have been so passed they ceased to be the property of the Board and become the property of the public, that it is not within the competence of the Board to confer the right of monopoly and the exclusive right of publication of the results on any individual newspaper to the exclusion and prejudice of other newspapers and that the petitioner has a fundamental right of having access to the results in order to carry on its business and render service and discharge its duties to its constituents in general and to readers, examinees and their guardians and those who are interested in the results in particular.

It is further urged that to confer the exclusive right of publication of the results amounts to discrimination against the petitioner and other newspapers and that conferring of such exclusive right of publication precludes the petitioner from being eligi

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