IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Date of Decision: January 08, 2025 GAURAV GHAI SEC SCHOOL LDH ........Petitioner Versus K.K YADAV ........Respondent CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE HARKESH MANUJA Present: Mr. Rajinder Ghai, Advocate for the petitioner.

Mr. R.S. Kalra, Advocate for the respondent.

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HARKESH MANUJA, J. (ORAL)

By way of present petition filed under Section 11 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 India, prayer has been made for initiation of contempt proceedings against the respondent on account of alleged willful non-compliance of order dated 28.09.2023 passed by this Court in CWP-21822-2023. The operative part thereof is extracted hereunder:-

3. Mr. Gurtej Singh, Deputy Secretary, appearing on behalf of the respondent-Board has submitted that as far as the first prayer with respect to the charges of examination fee for 5" and g' class is concerned, since petitioner no.2-school is not affiliated to the Punjab School Education Board as yet, thus, the respondent-Board is not charging any examination fee for the 5'" and 8" class and thus, the grievance of petitioner no.2-school is misconceived. With respect to the second prayer, it has been stated that as per the latest notification, in case petitioner no. 2-school wishes to get affiliation for classes gth and 10*, there is a standard slot for every year starting from 1" April of that year upto 15" September of the said year when the school, which wishes to seek affiliation from the respondent-Board, can apply. It is further submitted that after inspection and following the procedure as per law and after fulfilling all the conditions, the affiliation is granted in accordance with law. It is submitted that in case petitioner no.2-school wants affiliation for classes gth and 10th and as per the case of petitioner no.2, g'h class is to commence from 01.04.2024 then, petitioner no.2 needs to apply in the slot for the year 2024 i.e., 01.04.2024 to the said period, then the said application would be considered in accordance with law.

4. Learned counsel for the petitioners has submitted that in view of the statement made by the authorised representative of respondent- Board before this court, the two main grievances have been met and thus, as far as the two main grievances are concerned, the present writ petition be disposed of as having been rendered infrucutous. For the other grievances raised in the present petition, it is prayed that the petitioners be granted liberty to seek remedy in accordance with law.

5. In view of the above, the present petition is disposed of as having been rendered infructuous. Respondent-Board would be bound by the statement made before this Court. Liberty is granted to the petitioners to seek remedy with respect to the other grievances as prayed for, in accordance with law.”

Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that in terms of the aforementioned order, application for affiliation sought to be submitted by petitioner was required to be entertained in terms of the old fee and parameters fixed by the Punjab School Education Board and by not having done that respondents were liable to be proceeded against for having willfully violated the order passed by the Writ Court.

On the other hand, learned counsel for respondent refers to an order dated 18.10.2024 passed in LPA-1878-2024 whereby a similar plea raised on behalf of the petitioner initially by way of writ petition and thereafter in an intra-Court appeal did not find favour. The operative part thereof is extracted hereunder:-

“4. During the course of arguments, it transpires that the requisite application has been filed but the objection of the appellants is that in the meantime, amended regulations have come into force whereby the criteria for application form has been increased from Rs.30,000/- to Rs.1.5 lakhs plus GST. Similarly, the requirement of the area of the school has been increased from 3000 sq. feet to 5500 sq.feet. It is sought to be argued that since the earlier o