KUNJABIHARI BARIK Vs. SAMBALPUR UNIVERSITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners have approached this Court for a direction to the opp. parties 1,2 and 4 to place the petitioners in the first position of the merit list in respect of the candidates who had passed M.A. in History Part-II in the year 1999 from Sambalpur University and consequently quash Annexure-6 where opp. party No. 3 has been shown to have secured the first position.

(2.) The case of the petitioner is that they had taken admission in the P.G. course during the Session 1997-1999 in History and after completion of the first part they had appeared in the Part-I M.A. examination in July, 1998 and appeared in papers-I, II, III and IV in the said examination. After receipt of the mark sheet in the aforesaid papers it was found that the petitioner No. 1 has secured 52 marks in paper-1 part-I Examination and petitioner No. 2 has secured 51 marks in the said part-I M.A. examination. The next examination relating to part-II and whole was scheduled to be conducted in July-August, 1999 and while filling up forms of the said examination, the petitioners also filled in forms to appear in part-I paper-I examination to improve their marks. Though the petitioners had filled up the forms to improve their marks in the part-I paper-I, they did not appear and only appeared in Part-II M.A. whole examination. The further case of the petitioners is that they had secured 504 marks each, in first attempt and even though they had filled in the forms for improving their marks in paper-I part-I they had not appeared in the examination. According to the petitioners, the opp. party No. 3 who had also taken admission along with the petitioners and had also appeared in part-I paper-II examination conducted by the University in the year 1998-99, the total marks secured by her is 503. On 11.8.2000 the result of part-II M.A. examination was published in which the and opp. party No. 3 has been shown first in the order of merit whereas the petitioners have been shown in 12th position. After publication of the result the petitioner No. 1 on 8.9.2000 made a representation to the Controller of Examination through the Head of the Department praying for putting to him in the first position having secured more marks than opp. party No. 3. The Head of the Department also made an endorsement stating that the petitioner No. 1 was a student of the P.G. Department of History and had not appeared in the improvement examination for which he had filled in the form. However, the representation of the petitioner No. 1 was not accepted and no changes were made in the merit list of successful candidates published by the University. The petitioners are therefore before this Court for the reliefs as indicated earlier.

(3.) The Assistant Controller of Examination, Sambalpur University has filed the counter on behalf of opp. parties 1, 2 and 4 wherein it is stated that the petitioners after appearing in the first part of M.A. Examination in the year 1998 again filled up forms for appearing in paper-I of part-I improvement examination along with the whole part-II examination. Therefore they were not treated as regular students because of their filling up forms in respect of paper-I of part-I improvement examination. The University processed the forms and issued admit cards and made arrangement for printing of question papers and other necessary arrangement in the examination hall. Therefore, non-appearance in the said examination was not within the knowledge of the University and more so their non-appearance is also immaterial as once they filled up forms, the University had to act upon it and they are not to be treated as regular students as per the University Regulations.