JAYANTI SARKAR Vs. DIBRUGARH UNIVERSITY AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The sole question which falls for consideration in this writ petition is whether, on the facts and circumstances of this case, the Universityrespondents are barred by the doctrine of equitable estoppel from with holding the result of the B.A. Part-II Examination of the petitioner held in 1999?

(2.) The facts giving rise to this writ petition are that the petitioner passed the B.A. Part-I Examination in the year 1995 and appeared in the B.A. Part-II Examination in the year 1996, but was debarred from the examination Hall and was expelled from the examination for two years on the instruction of the College authorities. In the year 1999, she filled up the application form for the B.A. Part-II Examination by paying the requisite examination fees. The University-respondents issued the Admit Card for the Examination whereafter the petitioner duly sat for the Examination and waited for her result. However, the College authority informed her that her result was withheld. This induced her to approach this Court in WP(C) No. 273/2011 with the prayer for directing the University-respondents to either disclose the reason for withholding her result or declare the result forthwith. This Court by the order dated 21-1- 2011 disposed of the writ petition by directing the Controller of Examination of the University-respondents to dispose of the representation dated 3-7-2010 within three months. The University-respondents by the letter dated 10-2-2011 addressed to the Advocate of the petitioner disposed of her representation, the relevant portion whereof are reproduced below:

(3.) Obviously, the petitioner had missed her chance to pass Part-II examination within the period permitted by the statute governing the field for clearing the same i.e. by 1998. There is no dispute on this issue. However, the contention of Mr. M.A. Sheikh, the learned counsel for the petitioner, is that the University-respondents, having duly issued the Admit Card to the petitioner for the examination and having allowed her to sit in the examination, for which she had not played fraud, are now barred by the doctrine of equitable estoppel from withholding her result, and it would be most inequituous to do so in this manner. To fortify his submission, the learned counsel takes me to the decision of the Apex Court in Shri Krishnan v. Kurukshetra University, 1976 AIR(SC) 376 and the decision of this Court in Archana Goswami v. State of Assam,1998 1 GauLT 188. Per contra, Mr. R. Mazumdar, the learned standing counsel for the University-respondents, submits that the decision of the University-respondents to withhold the result of her examination is based on the statutes, which barred the petitioner from appearing in the B.A. Part-II examination after 1998, and the law is now well-settled that there can be no estoppel against the statute. He contends that the petitioner cannot take advantage of the issuance of the Admit Card to her for claiming declaration of her result: she completely overlooks the fact that the Admit Card issued to her was a provisional Admit Card enabling the University-respondents to cancel the examination subsequently if any defects were found in her candidature. He relies on the decision of the Apex Court in Maharashi Dayanand University v. Surjeet Kaur, 2010 11 SCC 159 to buttress his contentions. He, therefore, maintains that the writ petition has no merit and is liable to be dismissed with costs: