TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1958 (10) TMI 62
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
.... the Secretary, and the petitioners 3 to 6, to be members of the Managing Committee of the school. The 7th and the last petitioner is the Parsa High English School through the Secretary, Managing Committee. The State of Bihar is the first respondent, and the Board of Education, Bihar, is the second respondent. Respondents 3, 4 and 5 are officers of the Government, who have been constituted an ad hoc Committees pending the constitution of the Managing Committee of the school, according to the rules laid down in the Education Code. 2. The application is founded on the following allegations : In 1931, in pursuance of a unanimous resolution of the local public of Parsa, Thana head-quarters in the District of Saran in Bihar, a Managing Committee was formed with the first petitioner as its Secretary and other persons as members of the Committee, to raise subscriptions for, and to manage, the proposed High English School at Parsa. The school was started in 1932, by subscriptions raised from amongst the residents of villages round about the Parsa police station. The first petitioner claims to have made a substantial contribution to the funds of the school, in several installments totall....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
.... and on his failure to do so, he was suspended by the Managing Committee towards the end of December 1955. After framing charges against him, and after receiving his explanation and hearing him, the Managing Committee found him guilty of the charges, and ordered his discharge. Soon after, on 2nd January 1956, the Managing Committee duly appointed another Head Master in his place. The discharged Head Master moved the Inspector of Schools, Tirahut Division, against the order of discharge. Under orders of the Director of Public Instruction, who is the. President of the Board of Secondary Education, an inquiry was held by the Acting Secretary of the Board, who submitted his report, but no orders appear to have been passed thereon. The Director of Public Instruction ordered a fresh joint inquiry by the Secretary of the Board and a Deputy Director of Public Instruction. They heard the President and the Secretary of the school and the Head Master, and submitted a report. On a consideration of the second report, the Board of Education held that the discharge of the former Head Master was not justified, and ordered his reinstatement. About 12th December 1957, the Board of Education addresse....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
.... District Saran). The Court's order refusing such a temporary injunction restraining the defendants from taking charge of the school, was upheld by the High Court in its revisional jurisdiction, by its order dated May 13, 1958. After the petitioners had failed to get any relief from the Courts aforesaid in those proceedings, they got into touch with the officials of the Government of Bihar, for explaining their position vis-a-vis the management of the school, and the legal position of the Managing Committee of the school. Ultimately, on July 31, 1958, the first petitioner received a letter dated July 28, 1958, from the third respondent, to the effect that in view of the Court's refusal to issue any injunction against the ad hoc committee, he, as the President of that committee, proposed to take charge of the school on August 14, 1958, and he requested him to hand over complete charge of the school to the ad hoc committee. In view of the letter aforesaid, the petitioners moved this Court under Article 32 of the Constitution, for the protection of their alleged fundamental rights to property. They alleged that they apprehended "that if charge is not given over as requested in....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....the case, or the rules and regulations relating to the constitution, duties and powers or the Managing Committee vis-a-vis the Education Department of the Government. Though the arguments at the bar have ranged over a large field, and covered questions which do not properly arise in a proceeding of the kind we have before us, we have to confine our observations to the main point in controversy, namely whether the petitioners have made out any fundamental right and any actual or threatened invasion of that right, entitling them to a writ under Article 32 of the Constitution. 6. The learned Counsel for the petitioners relied upon the following allegations made in para. 4 of their petition, in support of their contention that they had a right of property in the premises of the school, which stand on the land purchased by them in the name of the Secretary of the Managing Committee: The Managing Committee purchased several plots of land the conveyances were taken in the name of the secretary on behalf of the Managing Committee and the said Committee built the School building on the said land and the said Committee was and is the owner of the School and of the land and buildi....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....ion," and runs as follows: Recognition shall only be withdrawn or with-held for reasons to be recorded in writing and on one of the following grounds: (a) that the school does not follow the course of study prescribed or approved by the department; (b) that it has corniced a willful breach of the transfer rules; (c) that it has not attained or does not attain to a reasonable standard of efficiency; (d) that it does not maintain a satisfactory standard of discipline, or employs any teacher who takes part in political agitation directed against the authority of Government or who endeavours to inculcate opinions tending to excite feelings of political disloyalty or disaffection among the pupils, or to create hatred between the different classes of His Majesty's subjects; or (e) that it appears to the authority empowered to grant recognition for any other reason to be injurious to the interest of education. NOTE.-- These rules apply to such middle and primary schools (including primary Sanskrit schools and primary Urdu schools) as are not under; the control of district boards, the district committee in the Santal Pargan....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....rs cannot have any just complaint if they have been or are being deprived, of those properties, because it is clear that the petitioners are holding the properties not in their individual absolute rights but only as trustees, for the purposes of the school. They have the properties vested in them because they are the Managing Committee. If they have been divested of those rights by the authority of law, this petition under Article 32 of the Constitution must stand dismissed. If, on the other hand, the amended Article 182 of the Education Code, is not law within the meaning of Article 13 of the Constitution, then the petitioners cannot be deprived of their right to hold the properties as trustees, by a mere fiat of the officials of the Government of Bihar. Though, in the affidavits sworn on behalf of the respondents, it was claimed that the provisions of the Bihar Education Code, had the force of law, it has been conceded by the learned Solicitor-General, appearing on behalf of the respondents, that he could not justify that contention. The preface to the latest edition (7th Edition) printed in 1957, of the Bihar Education Code (1944), contains the following statement by the then Di....