Supreme Court upholds NCTE power to demand annual Performance Appraisal Reports from teacher institutes
A bench of Justices P.S. Narasimha and Alok Aradhe held that NCTE and its Executive Committee can require Teacher Education Institutions to file annual Performance Appraisal Reports, restoring a quashed Public Notice.
The Supreme Court has restored the National Council for Teacher Education’s power to call upon Teacher Education Institutions to file an annual Performance Appraisal Report (PAR). In a judgment dated 3 September 2026, a division bench of Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Justice Alok Aradhe allowed the Council’s appeal and set aside a Delhi High Court order that had quashed a Public Notice requiring the reports.
The Court found that the High Court’s interpretation, while striking down the Council’s action as illegal and arbitrary, impaired the regulator’s jurisdiction. It held that the power to seek PARs is traceable to the NCTE Act and, even absent express empowerment, is incidental and ancillary to a regulator’s duties. The bench declared the Public Notice dated 22 September 2019 legal and valid.
How the dispute reached the Court
The proceedings before the High Court began with Teacher Education Institutions challenging a Public Notice dated 22 September 2019 issued by the Member Secretary of the Executive Committee. The notice required all TEIs to submit a Performance Appraisal Report for the academic year 2018-2019 online, along with payment of Rs. 5,000 per institution for Central and State Government institutions and Rs. 15,000 per institution for all other categories, regardless of the number of courses run.
The notice set a timeline from 23 September 2019 to 31 December 2019 and warned that non-submission would attract action under Section 17(1) of the NCTE Act.
The challenge was that only the Council could issue such a notice, and that the Executive Committee lacked empowerment. A single judge dismissed the writ petition, but the Division Bench allowed the appeals. It held there was nothing to show that the proforma attached to the notice had been placed before or approved by NCTE, and quashed the notice as being in violation of the NCTE Act. The High Court did not decide whether the amounts were fee or tax.
What the Court held on the regulator’s power
The Supreme Court disagreed with the High Court’s approach. It said that when a High Court reviews the exercise of power by a statutory regulator, the inquiry must be whether the authority violated a mandatory provision or transgressed the power vested in it, examined in the context of the larger mandate of the Act.
The Court traced the power to Section 12(k) of the NCTE Act, under which the Council may “evolve suitable performance appraisal system, norms and mechanisms for enforcing accountability on recognised institutions.” The Council deliberated on the issue and authorised NCTE to implement it through a proforma.
Even without specific statutory empowerment, the bench said, such a regulatory measure “can always be incidental and ancillary to the duties and functions of a regulator.” Since NCTE is itself subject to a performance audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, it was natural that it would require the institutions it regulates to provide PARs.
The record of the Council’s decision
The Court examined the minutes of the 48th Meeting of the General Body of NCTE held on 5 February 2019. The issue of annual renewal of recognition, approved earlier at the 46th meeting on 28 March 2017, had become entangled in litigation across High Courts. A study of the petitions revealed that annual renewal of recognition would not be feasible.
The Council therefore substituted the Performance Appraisal Report for annual renewal of recognition, with the proforma to be developed by NCTE. The decision recorded approval “authorising NCTE to proceed in the manner through a proforma to be developed by NCTE for this purpose.”
The Executive Committee, as the executive arm authorised to implement the Council’s decision of 5 February 2019, issued the Public Notice through its Member Secretary. The Court held this was exactly what the Member Secretary was required to do.
Accountability and the duties of regulators
The Court placed the outcome within a framework of accountability as an essential principle of administrative law. It identified three dimensions of accountability: responsibility, answerability and enforceability. Judicial review of the Council’s administrative action, the bench said, would be meaningful only if the accountability of Teacher Education Institutions is ensured.
The Court added that constitutional courts have a positive duty to ensure that regulators exercise their powers effectively, efficiently and in an accountable manner, and cannot take a technical or pedantic view of regulatory action. It relied on Vijay Rajmohan v. CBI on the constituents of accountability.
The bench situated teacher education within the constitutional recognition of elementary education as a fundamental right under Article 21A and the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009. Building on Dinesh Biwaji Ashtikar v. State of Maharashtra, which identified five duty bearers, the Court added two more: the Teacher Education Institutions and the National Council for Teacher Education itself.
The payment component
On the payments required by the Public Notice, the Court held that the sums were in the nature of a process fee, which is again an incidental and ancillary power a regulator must have. Although it was pointed out that the procedural and technical problem was later rectified at the Council’s 53rd meeting, making a decision on the notice arguably unnecessary, the Court chose to rule for clarity on the powers and functions of statutory regulators.
Order
The Court held that the Public Notice issued by the Member Secretary of the Executive Committee is legal and valid, and that the Council and the Executive Committee act within their jurisdiction in calling on TEIs to upload Performance Appraisal Reports. It allowed the appeal and set aside the judgment of the High Court of Delhi in LPA No. 190 of 2021 dated 13 March 2023. There was no order as to costs.