The portal said the approval had been issued. The Council simply would not let the college download it

Justice Juvvadi Sridevi directed AICTE to enable download of an Extension of Approval its own dashboard already showed as issued, and protected admissions made under an interim order.

The All India Council for Technical Education's own web portal showed the status of Sultan Ul Uloom Education Society's institution as “EoA Issued” for the academic year 2026-27, with no deficiencies recorded against it. What the Council would not do was let the institution download that approval from its dashboard — which, in practice, kept it out of the State counselling process. Justice Juvvadi Sridevi has directed the Council to enable the download forthwith, and protected the admissions the institution has already made.

The grievance

Extension of Approval is the annual permission a technical institution needs before it can admit students. It is applied for and granted through the Council's online system, and the dashboard status is what the institution and the State counselling authorities both work from.

Here the Council had approved the application and its portal recorded the status as “EoA Issued”. Access to the document itself was then withheld. The institution sent representations on 20 May 2026 and again on 8 June 2026 asking for the approval to be made downloadable, and the Council neither considered nor acted on either.

The consequence was not administrative. Without the approval in hand the institution could not take part in the State engineering and agriculture common entrance test counselling for 2026-27, which is the only route by which it fills its seats.

Counsel for the institution argued that having approved the application and having reflected the status as issued, the Council could not then withhold access to the very approval it had granted, and that doing so was arbitrary, unreasonable and unsustainable in law. The challenge was pressed under Article 226, with the submission that where the action of a statutory authority has the effect of defeating, frustrating or nullifying orders already passed by a competent court, the aggrieved party is entitled to invoke the writ jurisdiction.

What had already been decided

That submission has a history behind it. On 1 May 2025 the High Court had clarified that an earlier rejection by the Council would not stand in the way of further admissions while writ appeals were pending, and that position was subsequently affirmed by the Supreme Court. The institution's case was that withholding access to the approval, after those orders, was an impermissible attempt to render them ineffective.

The Court also had to deal with maintainability, since larger proceedings between the same parties are still alive. The answer accepted was that the cause of action here is fresh and independent: it arises not from the old rejection but from the Council's later conduct in withholding access to an approval already issued, and in preventing the institution from downloading it for 2026-27.

That framing matters for what the judgment does and does not decide. Writ Appeals Nos. 1281 to 1283 of 2024 are pending before a Division Bench and raise questions about title, the building plan, the occupancy certificate and other statutory and regulatory requirements of the Council. Justice Sridevi granted relief without adjudicating on any of those, and without expressing any final opinion on them.

What the Council said in answer

The Council did not defend the portal contradiction so much as argue past it. Its senior counsel pointed to the pendency of Writ Appeal No. 1281 of 2024, which concerns the institution's alleged non-compliance in earlier academic years, and to the Division Bench order of 4 August 2026. On that order he relied particularly on paragraph 11: the issues of compliance with the statutory norms prescribed by the Council were sub judice before the Single Judge, any institution admitting students was bound to adhere to those norms, and it was desirable that finality be brought to the compliance question so that the fate of students admitted in the meantime did not remain uncertain.

From that he argued that the Court was required to examine whether the institution actually complies with the Council's norms before granting it any relief, and that the institution could not escape that examination merely because related issues are pending before the Division Bench.

The argument has a real point in it about time. The institution is seeking permission to admit students for 2026-27, and those students will remain in the institution for several academic years, up to 2030-31. Compliance with mandatory norms, on this submission, cannot be deferred on the strength of pending appeals, and interim orders made for earlier academic years cannot carry an institution through the current one unless it demonstrates compliance for the current year.

What the judgment does with that is narrow rather than reject it. The compliance questions stay live before the Division Bench. What the Court decided is the smaller thing in front of it: an approval the Council had itself issued and recorded as issued, against an institution with no deficiencies on the portal, could not be made unusable by withholding the file.

Two things the Court weighed

The first is the students. Technical education, the judgment records, ultimately concerns the interests and the future of students. The interim order of 18 June 2026 had already recorded that excluding the institution from counselling would have serious and irreversible consequences for the institution and for aspiring students alike, and that the loss of an academic year cannot adequately be compensated later. A Division Bench order of 4 August 2026 noted that the institution had by then participated in counselling and taken admissions under that interim order, subject to the final outcome of the writ petition.

The second is consistency. The Court took note that the Division Bench had granted interim orders in the institution's favour for the previous academic year, and — more pointedly — that the same deficiencies the Council now relies on had also been raised in relation to Amjad Ali Khan College of Business Administration, which was nonetheless granted its Extension of Approval.

Against the portal status showing the approval as issued, and no deficiencies recorded against the institution, the Court held that in the peculiar facts of the case the petitioners were entitled to relief for 2026-27.

Order

The writ petition was disposed of with three directions. The Council must forthwith enable and provide access to the institution to download the Extension of Approval for the academic year 2026-27 from its online dashboard, in terms of the status already reflected there as issued. The respondents and all other concerned authorities must permit the institution to participate in the counselling and admission process for 2026-27 in respect of the courses for which it is otherwise eligible. And the admissions already undertaken pursuant to the interim order of 18 June 2026 stand protected for that academic year.

There is no order as to costs, and the pending miscellaneous applications stand closed. The matter was reserved on 10 September 2026 and pronounced on 13 October. The larger questions remain where they were, before the Division Bench in the writ appeals of 2024.