VINCENT Vs. GOPALA KURUP

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS petition under the Contempt of Courts Act 1971 is moved by three advocates of this Court after obtaining the consent of the Advocate General under S. 15 of the Act. The respondent Sri. Eravankara Gopala Kurup is a member of the Syndicate of the University of Kerala and also the Convener of the Syndicate Standing Committee for Examinations, University of Kerala. Based on the news reports which had wide publicity there petitioners sought to rely also on the fact, a fact not averred in the petition, that the respondent Sri Kurup was the President of the Non -teaching Gazetted Officers' Association in the University, some members of which were said to be involved in the criminal cases registered as a result of police investigation consequent on the decision of this Court on a batch of petitions relating to admissions to Medical Colleges. We do not think it necessary to call upon the petitioners to file an affidavit as to this fact only because it was admitted at the hearing by the counsel for the respondent after ascertaining with the respondent that he was the President of the Association. Commenting on an interim order passed by this Court on 8 -12 -1981 the respondent Sri Kurup gave to the press a prepared statement which was reported on 10 -12 -1981 in the Malayalam daily the Malayala Manorama and the English daily, the Indian Express, Ext. P -1 is the copy of the prepared statement issued by the respondent and Ext. P -2 is the copy of the relevant page of the newspaper Malayala Manorama containing report of the above statement. According to the petitioners the statement Ext. P -1 was deliberately made, to wilfully scandalise and lower the authority of this Court and also to interfere with the pending proceedings before this Court. Before we come to that statement and the Memorandum of Charges based on that statement it may be necessary to state a few facts to furnish the background that may be necessary to properly appreciate whether the criticism by the respondent made in Ext. P -1 statement was called for and justified and further whether it was within his rights to do so.

(2.) AS in the previous years this year too there were a good number of petitions before this Court under Art. 226 of the Constitution challenging the admissions to the first year M.B.B.S. Course in the Medical Colleges in the State 1981 -82. But there was a difference in that this year in addition to the challenges made on various grounds to the admissions there were also allegations in many petitions of the prevalence of widespread malpractice in the conduct of the examinations. This, it has now turned out, is the reflection of the general public opinion which viewed the conduct of the examinations with considerable suspicion. To this aspect this Court has adverted elaborately in the final judgment in the Original Petitions rendered on 23 -12 -1981 in O.P. No. 5756/81 and connected cases. Particular reference has been made therein to a series of articles in the leading dailies of the State and particularly the Malayalam Manorama, by eminent academicians including Vice -Chancellor who had been in office in the Kerala University and the Cochin University, a former Pro Vice -Chancellor of the Calicut University and even the current Vice Chancellor of the Kerala University. Besides them many eminent men of the academic world had also commented very disparagingly of the prevalence of such malpractice. Despite this when the petitioners moved this Court seeking that this Court should go deeper into this matter to find out whether there was such malpractice this Court was reluctant to do so. But after hearing counsel for some of the petitioners particularly in the background of views expressed by many eminent men competent to speak on the subject and also the views expressed by the responsible press of this country this Court felt that a prima facie case had been made out for the Court to justify looking into this question. At that stage in court passed an order in the Medical College admission cases on 18 -11 -1981 to make available for perusal by the Court, if necessary, the answer books of the candidates whose names appeared in the provisional select list. The Court directed to keep these in readiness in duly sealed covers in the hands of the respective counsel for the two Universities, Kerala and Calicut. The Court then called upon the counsel for the petitioners to choose some numbers at random from among that of those who had been selected in the provisional list so that instead of going through all the books the Court may consider only those answer books of those chosen by the petitioners. To these the Court also added some numbers are random thus making about 60 answers books. These were directed to be scrutinised by eminent academicians in each of the four subjects, Physics. Chemistry, Botany and Zoology who had volunteered to assist the Court in this matter. The court was not proposing to revalue the papers, but only ascertain whether on going through the papers the Court would be able to say that any malpractice had been committed, keeping an open mind on the issue. During the course of such examination it was disclosed to the Court that in the original answer books of two of the candidates out of the 40 and odd candidates of the Kerala University whose answer books were so scrutinised the marks obtained were such as would not entitle them to seek admission. In fact in the case of one candidate the total of marks for the four optional subjects was only 2. The Court thereupon called on the Additional Advocate General to make available the mark lists produced by these candidates before the Principal, Medical College, Trivandrum in support of the application for admission and these were obtained. The mark lists in respect of the two candidates who had obtained marks which would not qualify them for admission were found to be different from the marks noted in the answer books. Evidently this meant one of two things; either that the marks in the answer books were not reflected in the mark lists issued by the University or that there was no proper verification by the Selection Committee before preparing the select list. If there was no machinery for ascertaining the correctness of the marks with reference to the university records and admissions were based simply on the mark list supplied by the candidates that again was bad enough though the default then would be that of the Selection Committee. The Court did not know what the situation was at that time. There were many suspicious circumstances other than these disclosures with regard to marks. The possibility of substitution of answer papers was a matter urged before the Court and that again was a matter which the Court wanted to be pursued as evident from the order dated 8 -12 -1981.

(3.) THE point that we wish to emphasise is that the order passed by this Court on 8 -12 -1981 did not directly or indirectly comment on the conduct of the Universities in regard to the mark lists produced by the petitioners before the Selection Committee though this Court did express concern generally about the University examinations based on other materials in the case. Though the respondent has chosen to file an affidavit specifying his stand he has not chosen to point out any part of the order of this Court of 8 -12 -1981 as justifying his comments. It is not said with reference to any part of that order that it led him either to misunderstand the order or understand it in a manner which called for comment. Had he done so we would have adverted to that part of the order. In the absence of such a case we have to advert generally to that order. The order dealt with in detail the conduct of the Registrar of the University and the averments in the affidavits of the Deputy Registrar in an attempt to show that the Registrar did not act in accordance with the directions of this Court particularly in producing some of the answer books in time. Those answer books should have been with the counsel for the University days earlier in accordance with the orders of this Court. In this background the Court felt suspicious about such answer books and felt that the conduct of the Registrar had to be commented upon. After having referred to this the Court proceeded in para 4 of its order to refer in brief to the scrutiny of the answer papers. The Court said : "We must say that in regard to some papers there is reason for suspicion particularly in regard to some of the papers produced on 7 -12 -1981. Though the story of revaluation was emphasised before us on the earlier occasion and we have been led to think those papers which were not before us were legitimately elsewhere, being revalued. Now we have come to know that only two papers out of these twelve were revalued and not the others". This Curt went on to refer to the discrepancy in the marks disclosed on examination of some answer books. For the sake of convenience it is better that we extract para 5 of this Court's order : "5. More alarming is the result disclosed in regard to two of the candidates who have been provisionally selected for the First Year M.B.B.S. Course. One of them has obtained 0 mark in Physics, 0 mark in Chemistry, 0 mark in Botany and 2 marks in Zoology for the final examination. Candidates who have obtained total marks of 427 out of 450 have been provisionally selected by inclusion in the list and this candidate has got into the said select list as a candidate who has secured 428 marks. Certainly he could not have secured the said marks when he got 0 in all the three papers and 2 in one paper. He would not be anywhere near the winning post, he must be at the other end. We have yet another candidate who has obtained 17 makes in Physics, 18 marks in Chemistry, 24 marks in Botany and 26 in Zoology for the final examination (Total 85/180). Nevertheless the total marks of the candidate shown are 442 out of 450. How this happened we are not speculating. We would have looked into this ourselves. But unfortunately the mark list is not available with the University in regard to these candidates. We have gone through the mark list supplied by he candidates to the selection committee for admission. The marks shown in the copies of the certificates have evidently been acted upon by the Selection Committee for the present. It is for the Government to pursue this matter". As the last sentence in the para shows the Court left it to the Government to pursue this matter. We may incidentally say that going by press reports, the efforts of the Government in pursuing this matter led to registration of a number of crimes relating to manipulation of mark lists, a fact mentioned at the bar and not controverted. In para 6 the Court referred generally to the talk of corruption in the examination process without reference to any particular examination or any particular University and noticed that the Court's investigation into a few cases showed that there was room for concern and the charges of malpractice cannot be said to be unfounded. The Court directed what should be done in regard to the cases about which the Court felt suspicion on the examination of answer books. This is the order which was commented upon by the respondent in this case.