Apex court slams unrecognised teachers' training institutes

A Bench of Justices G S Singhvi and K S Radhakrishnan said granting recognition to undeserving institutions would be detrimental to national interest and noted that appellants did not approach the court “with clean hands and succeeded in polluting the stream of justice by making patently false statement” on their status.

The apex court rejected the plea of the institutes that the career of hundreds of students trained by these unrecognised institutes would be in jeopardy if the National Council for Technical Education (NCTE) was not asked to grant them recognition.

Dismissing the appeal of Maharashtra based-Abhyudya Sanstha and six other teachers training institutes, the Bench imposed a fine of Rs two lakh each on them for filing misleading claims before the apex court.

The institutes had come to the Supreme Court after the Bombay High Court upheld the Western Regional Committee, NCTE’s decision not to grant recognition to the institutes in the back-drop of the recommendations made by the Maharashtra government that there was no requirement of trained teachers in the state.

The appellant institutions had sought recognition in 2006 and 2007 for starting D.Ed courses. The aggrieved institutes claimed that infrastructure has been created by investing huge amount and cancellation of recognition will cause irreparable loss to them.