SUNIL KUMAR SHARMA Vs. UNIVERSITY OF BOMBAY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal against the judgment and order of a learned Single Judge of this Court in Writ Petition No. 768 of 1986 filed by the appellants dismissing the said Writ Petition.

(2.) THE relevant facts which are uncontroverted are as follows : -

(3.) IT was urged before us by Mr. Hegde that after its amendment, Ordinance 237A suffers from the vice of arbitrariness because it arbitrarily restricts the right of the students to have their papers re -valued to those students who have obtained at least one -half of the minimum marks required for passing in that subject. In the present case, it would restrict the right of the students in respect of re -valuation to only such of the students as had obtained at least 20% of the maximum marks in the subject. We are afraid that we are unable to accept this argument. If there is a proper system of initial assessment, in our view, there is nothing wrong in limiting the right of re -valuating to cases of marginal failures, as has been done by the amendment to Ordinance 237A. The fact that even students who have obtained only half of the minimum number of marks required for passing in the subject concerned are entitled to apply for re -valuation would show that the restriction imposed by the Ordinance is not unduly harsh but is a reasonable restriction in the absence of which revaluation would lead to many students passing by the sheer chance of luck in the event of a significantly more liberal standard being applied for revaluation then at the time of original assessment. That such a possibility existed is clearly beyond doubt because there seems to be nothing to provide that the standard applied for re -valuation should be comparable to the standard of assessment applied at the time of initial assessment of answer papers.