The court held that the expansion of classes 6 to 8 in an existing school is a progressive process, not the opening of a new school, and the Appellate Authority erred by not applying this judicial ratio to the petitioner's case.

ORAL JUDGMENT

1. Rule. Learned Assistant Government Pleader waives service of rule on behalf of the respondents. With the consent of learned advocates appearing for the respective parties, the matter is taken up for final disposal today itself.

2. By way of the present petition, the petitioner has challenged the order dated 19.6.2025 passed by respondent No.2 – Director of Primary Education and the order dated 9.12.2024 passed by respondent No.3 – District Education Officer, Ahmedabad and prayed for a direction to the respondents to grant the permission to the petitioner for opening classes of Standard 6 to 8.

Vide order dated 9.12.2024, the application of the petitioner to start primary classes i.e. Standard 6 to 8 at existing school i.e. Krishna Care English Medium School was rejected and by the order dated 19.6.2025, the appeal preferred by the petitioner against the said order was rejected.

3. The facts stated by learned advocate Mr. A. D. Oza are as under :-

3.1 The petitioner is a registered Charitable Trust carrying out the charitable activities including activities to run and manage the schools. The petitioner is running and managing C. K. Balmandir since 1959 and N. K. Prathmik Shala (Gujarati Medium) from Standard 1st to 8th since 1965 and currently, there are total 1284 students registered for the academic year 2025-26 in the above two schools.

3.2 The petitioner sought permission to open and run the primary school, namely, Krishna Care English Medium School from Standard 1st to 5th in English Medium from June 2018, for which the permission was granted vide order dated 19.3.2018 and since then, the petitioner is running the aforesaid School.

3.3 As the petitioner’s school does not have the permission to open and run classes of Standard 6 to 8 in the existing school i.e. Krishna Care English Medium School, the petitioner made an online application for the same. However, the said application was rejected.

3.4 Again the petitioner upon satisfying all the conditions made an online application on 21.11.2024 requesting the authority to grant permission to open Standard 6 to 8. However, vide order dated 9.12.2024, the said application was rejected and when the petitioner preferred an appeal against the said order, the Appellate Authority also rejected the appeal of the petitioner vide order dated 19.6.2025.

3.5 Being aggrieved and feeling dissatisfied with the said two orders i.e. order dated 9.12.2024 and 19.6.2025, the petitioner has preferred the present petition.

4. Mr. A. D. Oza, learned advocate appearing for the petitioner submitted that in identical set of facts, when one School, namely, Podar International School preferred Special Civil Application No.10183 of 2019 and as the vires of Bombay Primary Education (Gujarat Amendment) Rules, 2019 and more particularly, Rule 106(7)(iv) was also challenged, the Division Bench of this Court vide interim order dated 21.6.2019 granted relief to the said School in terms of para 9 (D) of the petition and the respondent – State was directed to permit the petitioner to impart education to the students of the school from classes 6 to 8 subject to the condition that the school otherwise fulfills the requisite criteria.

4.1 According to Mr. Oza, by way of the aforesaid amendment which was challenged by way of Special Civil Application No.10183 of 2019, what was challenged was the requirement brought