Association of Indian Universities - Writ not maintainable against AIU :- HC

From - http://www.thehindu.com

A deemed to be university cannot file a writ petition seeking a direction to the Association of Indian Universities (AIU), a private body based in New Delhi, to induct it as one of the members, the Madras High Court Bench here has ruled.

Justice K. Chandru passed the ruling while dismissing a writ petition filed by Noorul Islam Centre for Higher Education (a deemed to be university) in Kanyakumari district challenging an order passed by the AIU on September 22 last year refusing to induct it as one of its members.

The judge held that the petitioner university had no statutory right to insist on membership of a private body such as the AIU. Further, stating that the writ petition itself was not maintainable, he said that there was no question of going into the merits or demerits of the petitioner's plea. “In as much as the second respondent (AIU) is neither the State nor an instrumentality of the State so as to come within the purview of Article 12 of the Constitution and in the absence of any legal or enforceable right on the part of the petitioner university, the petition is misconceived and clearly not maintainable,” he said.

He also referred to the counter affidavit filed by AIU wherein it was stated that the association was a voluntary body comprising of Vice-Chancellors of various universities and there was no government control over the functioning of the management of the association.

The Union Ministry of Human Resource Development does provide grant at times for specific projects undertaken by AIU. But that could not be cited as a reason to claim that there was governmental control over the affairs of the association, it claimed.

It was also pointed out that a university must have a minimum of five years of standing to be eligible to become a member of the AIU as per a decision taken in its 84th Annual General meeting. The petitioner university was denied membership only because it did not conform to this norm.

Nevertheless, the AIU granted permission to the students of the petitioner university to participate in the co-curricular activities organised by the association. Not satisfied with that permission, the petitioner had approached the court by way of filing the present petition.