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The background facts in a nutshell are as follows:

The writ petitioner (respondent herein) is an Associate Professor in Metallurgical Engineering Department of the National Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur, the appellant herein. According to the writ petition, the writ petitioner submitted an application for admission in Quality Improvement Programme (QIP) sponsored by AICTE through Regional Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur. He was selected for admission in IIT, Madras and was asked to appear at that institution for completing pre-registration formalities. According to the writ petition, though he made an application to the appellant for relieving him to make the pre-registration visit, he had been illegally and arbitrarily denied the permission by the appellant. According to the writ petitioner, the action of the appellant was unreasonable and was also discriminatory. The appellant resisted the writ petition by pointing out that according to the norms, if on relieving a teacher to attend such a programme, the staff strength in that department would go below 70 percent of the fixed capacity, the permission was to be denied and if the writ petitioner was to be relieved as sought for by him, the strength in that department would be reduced to 6l.9% of the sanctioned strength and it was in that situation that he was not accorded permission to get himself registered for the course. It was also submitted that even originally, while forwarding his application, the writ petitioner had been informed that he would be able to pursue his course only if he could be relieved from the Institute and only if on his being relieved, the staff strength would not be reduced below 70%. The plea of discrimination was denied and it was submitted that the writ petitioner was deliberately attempting to malign the department by raising the bogey of his being a member of a Scheduled Caste and was trying even to blackmail the authorities by threatening that he would commit suicide if he was not relieved. The writ petition deserves to be dismissed. Though the learned Single Judge found that there was a norm providing for refusal of permission to a teacher to go in for such a course if the staff strength would be reduced below 70% yet it was observed that there was no consistency in that regard and the norms were not followed in several cases. Therefore, it would not be fair to deny such an opportunity. The appellant preferred Letters Patent Appeal before the High Court.