PAUL JAYAN Vs. UNIVERSITY OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The three petitioners in O. P. No. 567 and toe 38 petitioners in O. P. No. 1045 of 1976 challenge the Regulation sought to be made by the University of Kerala in regard to the Post Graduate Medical Course of that University by which, candidates like the petitioners in these writ petitions admitted to the course in 1974, were asked to take examinations in Part 1 of the Course commencing from tomorrow. By the interim orders granted by this Court, in O. P No. 567 of 1976, an interim stay of operation of the concerned notification as far as the petitioners are concerned was granted. Interim stay granted in O. P. 1045 of 1976 was vacated by order dated 17-3-1976. The hearing of these writ petitions was expedited as delay might render them infructuous.

(2.) The only ground on which the petitioners challenge the Regulation clamped on them by the University is that under the provisions of the Kerala University Act, 1974 and the First Statutes 1972, the right of making Regulations belongs to the Academic Council, that these Regulations had to be published and submitted to the Senate, and if not so submitted, the Regulations would lapse and be of no effect whatsoever. It was therefore said that in so far as the examinations were sought to be prescribed without following the procedure of passing Regulations by the Academic Council, publishing them, and submitting them to Senate, the prescription of the examination was not legal and proper. Our attention was called to S.25 clause (ii) of the Act. S.25 provides for powers and duties of the Academic Council. It enacts:

(3.) The answer made for the University was that the power of regulating examinations by Regulations framed by the University does not exhaust the powers of the Academic Council, that as S.38 itself would indicate, the power of framing regulations was only an enabling power which the Council may exercise, and that even in default of Regulations, duly framed and published, and approved by the Senate and the Vice Chancellor, the Academic Council had the requisite power of regulating examinations under S.24(2) of the Act. The said Section reads as follows: