DAMODAR MOHANTY Vs. UTKAL UNIVERSITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application for appropriate reliefs under Article 226 of the Constitution by a student of the Madhusudan Law College of the Utkal University who had appeared in the LL.B. Examination, Law Part I, held in June, 1952 and was declared to be unsuccessful. The marks obtained by him in the various subjects of that examination are as follows: <FRM>JUDGEMENT_50_TLORI0_1954Html1.htm</FRM> It appears that for passing the examination a candidate should secure at least 33 1/3 per cent, marks in every paper. The petitioner had passed in all the Papers except Paper V. On 8-9-1952, he submitted a representation to the Vice-chancellor of the Utkal University stating that in Paper V the subject for the course of study prescribed by the Academic Council was 'International Law relating to peace' and that questions 9, 10 and 11 of that paper dealt with 'International Law relating to War and Neutrality' which were outside the course of study and that the failure of the petitioner to obtain pass marks in that Paper was mainly due to the aforesaid questions having been, set on a subject that was not included in the syllabus. He further urged that if these questions were excluded the marks obtained by him in Paper V would be more than 33 1/3 per cent, and that consequently he should be declared to have passed the examination. This representation was rejected by the University authorities in their letter No. E.C. 401 dated 19th/20th September 1952. The petitioner then filed this writ application before this Court on 15-10-52. The delay in hearing the application was due to circumstances for which the petitioner was not responsible.

(2.) The material facts which are unchallenged are as follows: Under the old Regulations of the Utkal University the fifth Paper in Law, Part I dealt with the subject 'Roman Law and Ancient Law.' On 28-3-1949, the Academic Council, on the recommendation of the Board of Studies (Law), substituted 'Roman Law and International Law' for 'Roman Law and Ancient Law' and further decided that the distribution of marks should be 50 for Roman Law and 50 for International Law. The Syndicate also in its meeting held on 16-5-1949 prescribed the following two text-books for International Law, namely, (i) Manual of International Law by G. Schwarzenberger, and (ii) Law ' of Nations, an Introduction to the International Law of Peace by J. L. Brierly. The decision of the Syndicate was also based on the recommendation of the Board of Studies. (Law). These changes were directed to be given effect to from 1951. The Academic Council again met on 17-12-1949 for determining the -course of study for the LL.B. Examination for the year 1952 and though it made some changes in respect of some other Papers no alteration was made in Paper V which continued to be 'Roman Law and International Law.' The Syndicate which met on 21-4-50 for prescribing the text-books for the 1952 examination decided that the same text-books as were prescribed for the 1951 Examination (Manual of International Law by G. Schwarzenberger and law of Nations, an Introduction to the International Law of Peace by J. L. Brierly) should continue to be the textbooks for the Law Examination of 1952. Early in September, 1950, however, there was some correspondence between the then Vice-Chancellor Sri C. M. Acharya on the one hand and one of the Law Lecturers of the Madhusudan Law College Sri M. Mohanty on the other regarding the omission of Brierly's Law of Nations from the list of text-books as the said book was not available. The Vice-Chancellor further suggested that in Schwarzenberger's Manual of International Law, Chaps. 4 and 8 may be omitted. The Board of Studies (Law) met on 9-9-1950 to consider these suggestions and passed the following resolution regarding Paper V :

(3.) The petitioner's main grievance is that the University authorities themselves gave wide publicity to the change in the course of study in Law Part I, Paper V and stated in unambiguous terms that said paper would deal with 'Roman Law and International Law relating to Peace' only. All the students were, therefore, under the impression that questions on International Law would be confined to that branch of International Law which related to 'Peace' and that no question would be set on the other branch which related to 'War and neutrality'. He was, however, taken by surprise when in the Examination Hall he noticed that questions Nos. 9, 10 and 11 in Paper V were set on 'War and Naturality'. The printed question paper for law Part I, Paper V has been filed in this case (see annexure 'A'). There are fourteen questions in all of which questions Nos. 1 to 7 come under Group A which deals with Roman Law and questions Nos. 8 to 14 come under Group B which deals with International law. Questions 9, 10 and 11 deal with 'War and Neutrality'. In Group B a candidate is required to answer any three of the questions; but question No. 10 is made compulsory and 18 marks are allotted to that question. The petitioner alleged that his failure in this Paper was mainly because of his inability to answer question No. 10 His Answer Book was produced before this Court and it appears that he obtained 29 marks out of 100 in this paper. Prior to the publication of the results it appears that the University authorities themselves were considering the advisability of giving some reliefs to the students. Mr. K. S. Murty, who is the Professor of Law of the Madhusudan Law College was the Examiner at that time and from his affidavit it appears that while awarding 29 marks out of a total of 100 to the petitioner in Paper V he further indicated in the Answer Book in parenthesis that the petitioner would have obtained 36 marks if his total marks were upgraded on the basis of his performance in respect of the other questions. Hence the petitioner's contention that if the compulsory question No. 10 had been set on 'International Law relating to Peace' only he might have obtained pass marks, seems acceptable. If question No. 10 is wholly excluded he has secured 29 marks out of a total of 82 marks which work out to about 36 per cent.