BHARTI SHRIVASTAVA Vs. JIWAJI UNIVERSITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) We have heard petitioner, Kumari Bharti Shrivastava, who has appeared in person. We have also heard Shri Madhu Sudan Dubey, Registrar (Exams.), Jiwaji University, Gwalior, and we have perused the return filed in this matter on behalf of the University impleaded as Respondent No. 1. Shri Dubey has taken pains to explain the actual position and also placed law. We appreciate the contentions pressed before us by Shri Dubey on facts and law but we are unable to accept the stand taken by the University that no relief can be granted to the petitioner at this stage. This we say for several reasons. Indeed, the crucial position on facts which is undisputed in this case is that whether the petitioner must suffer for the original sin of the computer. It is the admitted case of the University that computer made a mistake and the petitioner was declared pass in the First Year Class of B.A. with grace marks 5 though according to the University Regulations she could not have been declared pass. Almost three months thereafter a fresh mark-sheet was prepared and it was sent to the petitioner, so it is claimed by the University, to take the stand that it was incumbent on the petitioner to take supplementary examination in the paper in which she was declared wrongly pass by the computer. Fortunately, for the petitioner, it is not any important subject in which she was unsuccessful but it was in Home-science Theory paper in which she failed. It is admitted that in all other important papers she has cleared.

(2.) Thereafter she continued to prosecute her studies unabated in the college and stepped up the academic ladder to reach III Year Class and now when the final examination has to be taken she has not been allowed to appear in that examination on the ground that she has not cleared Part I of B.A. examination though she has cleared Part II B.A. Examinations. Indeed, it is also submitted that she failed to take advantage of the special resolution the University, Annexure-R-5, and she did not clear Part I B.A. Examination in the year 1987. Shri Dubey has placed for our consideration provisions of Ordinance No. 6 Clause 21(3)(b) as also Clauses 32 and 36 thereof. We do not think it in these circumstances of the case which we have narrated above, any assistance can be derived from the provisions cited. We nowhere found in the Ordinance any provisions which take care of the situation like the present one where not only the computer has erred but the College authorities and University itself have also erred. For errors not of the petitioner herself the provisions are not to be pressed to her disadvantage. Indeed, we are of the view that if special resolution can be passed by the University to deal with special situation then it is preeminently fit case where such steps can be taken by the University on its own accord. That not having been done the petitioner has approached this Court to render her academic justice.

(3.) We have heard also in this matter Shri G.N. Bhatt, Principal, Government Girls' College, Morena, and we have perused the reply filed by him to the application for ad interim writ. Shri Bhatt has conceded that petitioner has not been communicated the special resolution of the University aforesaid. This distinctive feature of the case tilts the balance in favour of the petitioner and persuades us to hold it is a fit case in which the provisions of Clauses 21(3)(b), 32 and 36 of Ordinance 6 have to be waived and that can be very well done by the Executive Council of the University. Accordingly we, direct that the Executive Council of the University shall do the needful and we further direct that the petitioner shall be allowed to appear in Part III of B.A. final examinations in which she has to take the first examination on 7th April 1988 but her result shall not be declared until she clears the Home-Science Theory paper of Part I B.A. and she shall be allowed to appear at the next supplementary examination for that purpose. In case, she clears that paper and accordingly clears Part I of B.A. in the supplementary examination only then and then her results in B.A. Part III examination shall be declared though she shall be allowed to take these examinations.