Admission to Engineering College-Jammu & Kashmir Regional Engineering  College, Srinagar,  registered  as  a society under  the Jammu & Kashmir Registration of Societies Act,  1898 - Whether a    "State" under Article 12  of the Constitution and amenable to writ jurisdiction.

Court ruling:

The Courts should be  anxious to enlarge the scope and width of  the Fundamental  Rights by  bringing within  their sweep every  authority which is an instrumentality or agency of the Government or  through the  corporate personality of which the  Government  is  acting,  so  as  to  subject   the Government in  all its myriad activities,  whether  through natural persons or through corporate entities, to the basic obligation of  the Fundamental Rights. The  constitutional philosophy of  a democratic  socialist republic requires the Government  to under  take  a multitude  of  socioeconomic operations  and the  Government,  having  regard  to the practical advantages of functioning through the legal device of a  corporation, embarks on myriad commercial and economic activities by  resorting to the instrumentality or agency of a corporation, but this  contrivance of  carrying  on such activities  through   a corporation  cannot  exonerate the Government  from   implicit  obedience  to the Fundamental Rights. To use the corporate methodology is not to liberate the Government from its basic  obligation to  respect the Fundamental Rights and not to override them.The mantle  of a  corporation may be adopted in  order to free the Government from the inevitable constraints ofred-tapism and slow motion but by doing so, the Government cannot be  allowed to  play truant with the basic human  rights, otherwise it would be the easiest thing for the government to assign to a plurality of corporations almost every  State business such as Post and Telegraph, TV, Radio, Rail,  Road and    Telephones-in short  every  economic activity-and thereby  cheat the people of India out of the Fundamental Rights  guaranteed to  them. That would  be  a mockery of the Constitution  and nothing short of treachery and breach of faith with the people of India, because though apparently  the corporation  will be carrying  out  these functions, it  will in  truth and  reality be the Government which will  be controlling  the corporation and carrying out these functions through the instrumentality or agency of the corporation. Courts  cannot  by  a  process of judicial construction allow  the Fundamental  Rights to  be  rendered futile and  meaningless and there by wipe out Chapter III from  the  Constitution. That    would  be  contrary  to   the constitutional faith  of the  post-Menaka Gandhi  era. It is the  Fundamental  Rights  which  along with  the  Directive Principles constitute the life force of the Constitution and they must  be quickened into effective action by meaningful and purposive interpretation. If a corporation is found to be a  mere agency  or surrogate of the Government, "in fact owned  by  the Government, in  truth controlled  by the government and in effect an incarnation of the government," the court  must not  allow the enforcement of Fundamental Rights to  be frustrated  by taking  the view that it is not the  government and, therefore, not subject to the constitutional limitations. Therefore, where  a corporation is an  instrumentality or agency of the Government, it is an authority within  the meaning  of  Article  12  and,  hence, subject to the same basic obligation to obey the Fundamental Rights as the government.

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THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  INDIA
PART  III FUNDAMENTAL  RIGHTS General
12. In this Part, unless the context otherwise requires,"the  State"  includes  the  Government  and  Parliament  of India and the Government and the Legislature of each of the  States  and  all  local  or  other  authorities  within  the territory of India or under the control of the Governmentof India.


https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1186368/?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=a02758031452bbe37442d5245121e4b7e3dacd73-1608017709-0-AR9eNlS5SGpfJpbJ1r32n6vtrpAL3MD0Jk9QBjWHhm9HZ6psLAK8UbwDuqCS4ESZJsP6RY7nQJ0dhrcbthjRJxpX5rdZ4UtR8PNjSOByWT7v7UXIHPKbfbHaFrS3bLdUvEGK932eA4dAk0bmlCFPectvS_KVdIcgg5EJg2XntumKx5PX3PVjbLwB_c-Y3QrkGxNQQM2WcpjOF_OvJDMtSpsobXr6WRRmOpZV1uk80RzIWMGRJeiDNarQlVLHclwTyKslHYZcG-Jy_pwephnp1CsA66-k2RFh7f95r1FXCaUqhRdpQNjfZFkVCPQsiAvqIA1OuspWbjRvUMi93Xq8tLQpgrNrbCmy8R7dh7Qax187GU_CT6iD5DQIXUO9xJLF1w