Unguided regulatory discretion in private education laws can offend equality and occupation rights, making the core scheme invalid.

A regulatory statute governing private educational institutions was found unconstitutional because it vested wide discretion in the authority and State Government to grant, refuse, cancel, or exempt permissions without objective standards or guiding policy. The absence of intelligible criteria was held to create arbitrary administration, offending Article 14, and the restrictions on carrying on an occupation were also treated as unjustified for want of workable norms to support the regulatory intrusion. As the impugned provisions formed the backbone of the permission-and-supervision scheme, they were held not severable, and the enactment was treated as incapable of surviving in part.

---

---

Issues: (i) Whether the impugned provisions conferred unguided and arbitrary discretion on the authority and the State Government, offending Article 14 of the Constitution of India; (ii) Whether the restrictions imposed on private educational institutions amounted to an unreasonable restriction on the right to carry on an occupation under Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution of India; (iii) Whether the invalid provisions could be severed from the Act or whether the entire Act had to fall.

Issue (i): Whether the impugned provisions conferred unguided and arbitrary discretion on the authority and the State Government, offending Article 14 of the Constitution of India.

Analysis: The Act required prior permission for running a private educational institution, but it laid down no adequate criteria for granting, refusing, or cancelling permission. The particulars required in the application did not themselves operate as standards for decision-making, and the power to issue directions, choose the competent authority, and grant exemptions was couched in wide terms without any limiting policy or norm. Such open-ended discretion created a real danger of discriminatory and arbitrary administration.

Conclusion: The impugned provisions were invalid as conferring arbitrary and unguided discretion, and were inconsistent with Article 14.

Issue (ii): Whether the restrictions imposed on private educational institutions amounted to an unreasonable restriction on the right to carry on an occupation under Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution of India.

Analysis: Although the object of regulation was to control private educational institutions, the Act did not prescribe intelligible standards for maintaining academic quality, facilities, staffing, or other essential requirements. The absence of objective norms for regulatory control meant that the restrictions were not shown to be supported by a clear legislative policy or by workable criteria capable of justifying the intrusion into the petitioners' business activity.

Conclusion: The regulatory restrictions were held to be unjustified and could not be sustained as reasonable restrictions.

Issue (iii): Whether the invalid provisions could be severed from the Act or whether the entire Act had to fall.

Analysis: The offending sections were integral to the statutory scheme governing permission, supervision, cancellation, and exemption. The regulatory structure was built around those provisions, and the remaining parts could not function as an independent and workable scheme once the central provisions were struck down.

Conclusion: The invalid provisions were not severable, and the entire Act was declared ultra vires.

Final Conclusion: The challenge succeeded in full, and the legislation could not be upheld in part because the core regulatory mechanism itself was constitutionally defective.

Ratio Decidendi: A regulatory statute that confers uncontrolled discretion to permit, cancel, or exempt, without laying down objective standards or guiding policy, is vulnerable to invalidation for arbitrariness, and where such provisions form the backbone of the scheme they may render the entire enactment unenforceable.

---