JASKARAN SINGH MATHARU Vs. PANJAB UNIVERSITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This judgment shall decide all the above mentioned writ petitions as common questions of fact and law are involved therein. For ease of reference facts are being extracted from CWP No. 1952 of 2022.

(2.) The petitioner is a student of B.Com. L.L.B. (Hons.) 5 years Course being conducted by respondent No. 3. Presently, he is a student of 3rd semester. He is desirous of migrating to respondent No. 2 - University Institute of Legal Studies (UILS). Respondent No. 1 - Panjab University published a notice dtd. 24/8/2021 inviting applications for migration to 3rd, 5th and 7th semesters of B.A./B.Com. L.L.B. (Hons.) 5 years integrated course, Session 2021-2022 being conducted at UILS Chandigarh. Applications were to be submitted between 1/9/2021 and 7/9/2021. The petitioner submitted his application dtd. 1/9/2021. Two months later, Public Notice dtd. 18/11/2021 was issued informing all applicants for migration to submit copies of their DMCs/results of the previous semesters by 29/11/2021. This notice was complied with and the result was submitted vide application dtd. 24/11/2021. Based on the previous results, a merit list of students desirous of migrating to 3rd semester of UILS was drawn up in which name of the petitioner is at Serial No. 1 amongst the B.Com. L.L.B. (Hons.) students. This was followed by another Public Notice (copy of which is Annexure P-8) informing the applicants that online counselling would beheld on 17/12/2021 between 10.50 a.m. and 12.00 noon. A day prior to the counselling, notice dtd. 16/12/2021 was posted postponing the migration till receipt of further orders from the competent authorities. This was followed by notice dtd. 1/2/2022 whereby all earlier notices regarding migration to UILS during the Session 2021-2022 were withdrawn. Thus, the present writ petition was filed.

(3.) In the written statement filed on behalf of the University it has been submitted that students of the UILS had submitted a representation dtd. 2/9/2021 to the Controller of Examinations complaining of inflation of marks by respondent No. 3 - Rayat College of Law (hereinafter referred to as 'Rayat College'). On receipt of the complaint, a meeting of the Administrative and Academic Committee was convened at 2.30 p.m. on the same day. In this meeting, it was resolved that the University should look into the option of rationalization of result or rechecking of sheets of toppers or in the alternative to not consider online examination marks while declaring University toppers. The Committee strongly recommended centralized coding and evaluation system and further recommended that the matter requires consideration so that a proper solution could be found. The complaint as well as deliberations of the Joint Committee were forwarded to the Secretary to the Vice Chancellor on 3/9/2021. The matter was put up to the Vice Chancellor who directed constitution of a Committee comprising Controller of Examination/Director UILS vide noting dtd. 13/9/2021. Thereafter, the Controller of Examinations recommended holding of a screening test at the level of the concerned department for the purposes of migration. This proposal was forwarded to the Secretary to the Vice Chancellor who forwarded the same to the Vice Chancellor vide his noting dtd. 16/12/2021. The Vice Chancellor asked the Director UILS and Chairperson, Department of Laws to discuss jointly. It was also decided to keep the counselling for migration inabeyance till the time a final decision is taken. Thus, notice dtd. 16/12/2021 was issued putting the process of migration on hold. On 6/1/2022, a meeting was held of nominated faculty members of UILS and the Chairperson of Department of Laws. In this meeting it was recommended that migration for the academic Session 2021-2022 can be done after moderation. From the next academic session migration be done on the basis of entrance test. A recommendation was also made to cancel the examination centre of Rayat College. These recommendations were approved vide noting dtd. 26/1/2022. Thus, the action of withdrawing the notices for migration was justified as marks obtained by students of Rayat College were highly inflated.