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39. A judgment of the Gujarat High Court reported in Prathamkumar v. Indian Institute of Management (CDJ 2005 GHC 189) has been relied on by learned counsel for the petitioner. In the said case the petitioners had appeared in the Common Entrance Test for the purpose of Post Graduate Diploma and Fellow Programmes in IIMs for the academic year 2005. Although they secured more than 98% marks in the CAT, they were denied admission on the ground that the University from where they have studied is not recognised by AIU. The facts of the case have been mentioned in paragraph 4, which is quoted as below:

"(4) All the petitioners have studied in the respondent No.4 University i.e. Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology in B.Tech programme and are in the process of completing prescribed four years B.Tech from the said University. The respondent No.4 University is declared as deemed university and is established by the Act No.6 of 2003 of the Government of Gujarat which is located at Gandhinagar. It is the case of the petitioners that as per the university Grants Commission Act, 1956 which is an Act of Parliament of India, the University whether established by an Act of Parliament or by Act of the Stage Government, stands at par with any other university and is competent to precube course, hold examination and confer degrees and other qualification. It is the case of the petitioners that as the petitioners wanted to get admission for the course of post Graduate Diploma and Fellow programmes in IIMs for 2005 which are full time residential courses open to students from all disciplines and therefore they had appeared in the common admission test -

2004 (hereinafter referred 10 as the "cat") for the admission to the academic year 2005-07. It is required to be noted that Indian Institute of Management ("iim, Ahmedabad" for brevity) held CAT for admission to the aforesaid Fellow programmes which are open to the students from all disciplines and there are six IIMs in India including IIM, Ahmedabad and so far as this year is concerned, IIM, Ahmedabad has organized admission for students of Post Graduate and Fellow programmes in management holding CAT and it is the case of the petitioners that mainly on the basis of performance at the cat by candidates, admissions are processed. It is the case of the petitioners that the petitioner of special Civil application No.5062 of 2005 has secured 98.88% of marks in the CAT, the petitioner of Special Civil Application no.5063 of 2005 has secured 99.03% marks in the CAT and the petitioner of special Civil Application No.5064 of 2005 has secured 99.86% of marks in the CAT and in spite of that, the petitioners are not considered to be eligible for participating in 2 further admission process and therefore, they have approached this Court by way of present special civil applications."

In the above context, the following was laid down in paragraph 26 of the judgment, which reads as under:

"(26) NOW, it is required to consider whether stipulation while determining the eligibility criteria for allowing a candidate for getting admission in IIM to the effect that Bachelor's degree obtained by a candidate is recognised by AID and in that case only the candidate would be considered to be eligible for admission in iiim, is reasonable and/or has nexus with the admission process, is just and valid or not'. As stated hereinabove and considering the admission process for getting admission in PGP in IIM, everything depends upon the performance of a candidate in CAT examination, group discussion and personal interview. Therefore, whether a student studied in a particular institute and/or university, as such, does have that much importance so far as admission is concerned. Thus, degree recognised by AIU and/or institute/University recognised by aiu has no nexus with admission of a candidate to PGP course in IIM. As stated hereinabove and even admitted by AIU, aiu has no authority to accord recognition to any particular institute and/or university in the field of academic education. Thus, considering the aforesaid facts and admission process, such a stipulation to the effect that a candidate from where he has studied and the degree obtained by him, must have recognition by aiu is unreasonable, arbitrary as it has no nexus with admission process and actual admission in the IIM and thus, the same requires to be quashed and set aside.