CHANDER MOHAN Vs. KURUKSHETRA UNIVERSITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The following facts, which are hardly in dispute, give rise to an interesting and somewhat significant question of law. It relates to the powers of the Vice-chancellor under Ordinance III of the Kurukshetra University Calandar, Volume II (1986 Edition).

(2.) The five petitioners were examinees in the seventh semester examination of the B. Sc. Civil Engineering course held by the respondent University in December 1984/ January 1985. Before their results could be declared, the University authorities received a complaint that there had been mass copying in that examination and the matter deserved to be gone into. According to the petitioners, this was as a result of the party faction amongst the teaching staff of that college, i.e., Regional Engineering College, Kurukshetra, and it even led to the suspension of four teachers concerned with that examination. However they were not later found guilty of anything and were reinstated. The case of the respondents, on the other hand, is that as a matter of fact reports were received from various examiners to the effect that the petitioner were guilty of copying and it was on that account that proceedings were initiated against them. Anyway, the fact remains that some time late the petitioners were served with due notices to appear before the Unfair Means Committee (for short, the U.M.C.) on March 19, 1985 at 3 p.m. in the office of the Deputy Registrar (Examinations). Kurukshetra University in connection with the above noted allegation of copying pertaining to them. The petitioners did appear before that Committee on that date and time. The Committee, however, exonerated them in the light of its decision the relevant part of which reads as follows :-

(3.) Still later as there were some press news about the above noted mass copying in that examination and also some resolutions by the Teachers Association requesting the Vice Chancellor to hold an enquiry into the above noted matte, he in the purported exercise of his powers under Clauses 10 and 11 of Ordinance III referred to above requested a teacher from Delhi Engineering College to go into the matter and on the receipt of his report further requested the Government to nominate an officer to hold a regular enquiry into the above-noted issue of mass copying in the said examination. It may be mentioned here that in those days the affairs of the University were being run by bureaucrat of the Indian Administrative service as a stop-gap arrangement in the absence of a regularly appointed Vice Chancellor. As a result of this move the Government appointed Mr. R.A. Goel, Cheif Engineer, Haryana, PWD, B&R Branch, to examine the whole issue. Mr. Goel issued the requisite notices to the petitioners to appear before him and after considering the whole matter in the light of the material placed before him by all concerned, be submitted his report on May 27, 1985, copy of which is Annexure R.1 to the affidavit of the Registrar of the University. This report runs into 17 typed pages besides the annexures to the same . In this report after examining the matter threadbare he held the petitioners guilty of copying He also commented on the performance of the U.M.C. referred to above and according to him, the said Committee "did not address itself to the task seriously". He further observed that this Committee "performed its duty in less than serious manner in spite of unanimous reports of four external and internal examiners and clear documentary evidence of word-for-word and figure-for-figure copying including also identity in various errors and mistakes in the answer books". As a result of this report the Vice chancellor passed and order on May 31, 1985 debarring the petitioners from taking any examination for different durations in the light of the extent of copying they had resorted to. He also ordered the cancellation of their results. The petitioners filed 'mercy appeals' before the Vice Chancellor but he declined to grant any relief to them. They now impugn this action of the vice Chancellor on a wide variety of grounds, such as :-