The division bench of Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal and Justice A P Shah held that the State Government had no powers to grant permission to colleges beyond the perspective plan and declared the permissions thus granted, illegal and annulled them. Students of the colleges thus affected will be allowed to sit for their examinations for this academic year and will have to be absorbed in other colleges, for the next academic year, the bench ruled.

The four colleges thus struck off from the list of those offering a BCS degree are: Instituteof Science, Parvati, Pune, Raja Shri Shivarey Institute, Kothrud, Samata Vikas Prathisthan, Kolgaon and Singhagad Technical Institute.

The public interest writ petition against the blatant misuse of power by the alliance government was filed by three lecturers: A lecturer in a junior college of SNDT Women's University, Pune, Dhananjay R Kulkarni, Prof Harish Desai, lecturer with Commerce department of Garware Commerce College and president of the Pune Vidyarthi Shikshak Sangh, and a teacher in Mathematics, Wadia College, Pune, Shrikrishna Bhave.

The petition that was disposed off in the stage of admission, was heard in detail by the bench, for two days continuously. In fact, the bench of the Chief Justice and Justice A P Shah were reconstituted for the hearing of the case and a detailed order was given on Tuesday.

According to the petition, the Pune University under the provisions of the Maharashtra Universities Act, 1994, had prepared a perspective plan for the educational development of unserved andunder-developed areas for the period 1997-2001. Any institute seeking permission to start a new college could apply for permission only within the plan as declared under section 82 (1) of the Act. Counsel for the petitioners, Vinay Navare argued that no institution not in conformity with the plans could be considered by the university.

In this case, six colleges, had made an application for starting the BCS course, a three-year degree course with the Pune University (PU). The other two colleges, whose permissions were found to be legal are the Pune Shikshan Mandal and the Nashik Zilla Maratha Vidya Prasarak Samaj, Shivaji Nagar. These were over and above the 25 colleges already conducting the BCS course, before the current academic year started in 1998-99.

However, the applications of the four colleges were found not fitting in the perspective plan of the PU and were rejected. As under the rules, the PU put forth the applications, both those recommended and those not recommended, to the State Governmentfor consideration. The petitioners contended that though the State Government had the powers under sub-section 5 of section 82 of the Act, to grant permission to colleges even if they are not recommended by the universities, this was to be used only in `exceptional conditions' with reasons to be recorded.

In this case, Navare contended that the State, acted mechanically and granted permission to all the four colleges. In fact, in the Mantralaya records placed before the bench of the Chief Justice, letters of recommendation were found written by ministers and local legislators which were followed by letters of the secretaries of the state department of higher education, which `suggested' the reasons for granting the permissions.

Interestingly, the reasons were also found to similar (word to word) in almost all the letters which said that the concerned institute was local, comparatively competent and would facilitate the course of BCS with the vocational orientation.

It was the case of the petitionersthat the State Government acted beyond the powers vested in it especially because of the strong political influences of the trustees and presidents running these colleges. The Institute of Science, Parvati, for example has N C Joshi, as a trustee who is a member of the senate of the PU, a member of the executive council for several years and associated with educational institutions. The Raja Shri Shivarey Institute, Kothrud, Pune has its president and chairman in Shashikant Sutar, minister till recently in the State Government.

Subhashchandra Bhosle, a registrar of the Pune University for the past 15 years is a trustee of the Samata Vikas Prathisthan, Kolgaon.What strengthened the case further was that though the academic year started from July 1, 1998, permissions came sometime in July and August 1998 and in the case of the Institute of Science as late as August 28, 1998. Admissions were given by Shivaray Institute without entrance examinations and though the PU knew that the Institute of Science andShivaray Institute had granted admission, PU proceeded to hold an entrance examination on October 11, 1998 only to regularise admissions already granted by 3 and 4. Also, while the colleges lacked a faculty of science in which the BCS course could be started, the State gave them the explicit permission to start the science faculty only to accommodate the BCS course.