Regulatory scheme interpretation excludes private engineering and technical colleges from the Tamil Nadu Private Colleges Act and Rules.

Private engineering and technical colleges were treated as outside the Tamil Nadu Private Colleges (Regulation) Act, 1976 because the Rules framed under the Act confined the regulatory scheme to specified categories of colleges, including Arts and Science, Teachers Training, Physical Education, Oriental, Social Work and Music colleges. The composite statutory scheme, read with the definitions of "college" and "Director" in the Rules, indicated that the Act's machinery was intended for institutions under the Directorate of Collegiate Education, not for technical institutions under the Directorate of Technical Education. The omission of engineering and technical colleges in the Rules was relied on as contemporanea expositio to construe the parent Act consistently with that exclusion.

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Issues: Whether private engineering and technical colleges fall within the scope of the Tamil Nadu Private Colleges (Regulation) Act, 1976 and the Rules framed under it.

Analysis: The Act stated that it applied to private colleges and defined "private college" broadly, but the Rules, particularly the definition of "college" in Rule 2(b) and the definition of "Director" in Rule 2(d), confined the regulatory scheme to Arts and Science Colleges, Teachers Training Colleges, Physical Education Colleges, Oriental Colleges, Schools of Social Work and Music Colleges, and did not include engineering or technical institutions. The Rule-making framework, read as part of the composite statutory scheme and as contemporanea expositio, showed that the regulatory machinery was intended for colleges under the Directorate of Collegiate Education and not for institutions controlled by the Directorate of Technical Education. Because the Act could not be effectively worked without the Rules, the exclusion of technical institutions in the Rules supported the construction that professional and technical colleges were outside the Act itself.

Conclusion: Private engineering and technical colleges are not governed by the Tamil Nadu Private Colleges (Regulation) Act, 1976 or the Rules framed under it.

Ratio Decidendi: Where the rule-making scheme under a statute exhaustively defines the regulated class and omits a category of institutions, that omission may be relied on as contemporanea expositio to construe the parent Act as not extending to that omitted category.

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