SIVARAJ Vs. VICE CHANCELLOR, ANNA UNIVERSITY AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner has come up with this writ petition for a mandamus, directing the respondents 1 to 3 to instruct the fourth respondent either to return his transfer certificate issued by the last studied school or issue a transfer certificate showing as discontinued the course of B.E. Computer Science.

(2.) The case of the petitioner in brief is that he joined the fourth respondent College in B.E. Computer Science under Government quota for the academic year 2017-18. At that time, he submitted all the original certificates and paid the necessary fees. He attended the classes from 21.08.2017 to 19.09.2017. Thereafter, he did not continue his course from 20.09.2017 onwards, as there was no proper facilities available in the fourth respondent college. On 22.09.2017, the petitioner approached the fourth respondent with a written request, to return all the original certificates produced by him at the time of admission. Finding no response, he sent a legal notice dated 28.09.2017 to the fourth respondent requesting to return of the certificates. On receipt of the same, the fourth respondent returned 10th and 12th mark sheets and community certificate, however, they did not return the transfer certificate and asked the petitioner to remit the three years tuition fees for return of the same. In the mean time, the petitioner joined S.V.S. College of Engineering, Coimbatore in B.E. Computer Science. Since he is hailing from the poor family and he is unable to pay the amount as demanded by the fourth respondent, he sent a representation to the respondents 1 to 3 requesting to direct the fourth respondent either to return the transfer certificate issued by his last studied school or to issue transfer certificate showing him as discontinued the course. However, the said representation has not been considered by the respondents. Hence, this writ petition.

(3.) The learned counsel for the petitioner, referring to the public notice issued by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), submitted that the fourth respondent has no authority to retain the certificates produced by the petitioner at the time of admission. In support of the claim made by the petitioner, the learned counsel placed reliance on the decision of this Court in S.Muthukamatchi v. The Director of Technical Education, Anna University [2013 (1) CTC 595] , wherein, this Court held that "the original certificates of the candidate cannot be retained by the institution as if it is a fixed deposit receipt on which the banks claim general lien in terms of section 171 of the Contract Act". Therefore, the learned counsel submitted that the fourth respondent may be directed to return the transfer certificate to the petitioner.