AMARENDRA PRATAP SINGH Vs. LALIT NARAIN MITHILA UNIVERSITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Can compassion for an unfortunate student of an unrecognised and unaffiliated educational institution warrant a mandamus for the declaration of his examination result contrary to the statutory provisions or University Regulations - is in essence the core question before the Full Bench in this reference.

(2.) The facts lie in a narrow compass and may be noticed with relative brevity from C.W.J.C. No. 2445 of 1986 in these two connected writ petitions. The two petitioners therein were the students of a proposed L.N. Mishra Teachers' Training College which admittedly is neither a recognised nor an affiliated institution of the respondent L.N. Mithila University. Nevertheless it is averred on their behalf that they were allowed to sit in the Bachelor of Education examination in the month of December, 1980 by the aforesaid respondent University as private candidates and admit cards were also issued to them by the University on a provisional basis along with others. It is claimed that though the petitioners had been able to pass the said examination successfully, their result is not being declared on the ground that their applications were not in confirmity with the requirement of law and University Regulations which, inter alia, required payment of additional amount of Rs. 25/- as permission fee. It is averred that in the year 1982 some other students similarly situated preferred C.W.J.C. No. 2147 of 1982 Kumud Kumar Singh v. L.N. Mithila University against the respondent University, which was disposed of on 25th of August, 1982 with the direction to the University to consider the case of the petitioners sympathetically. Thereafter respondent No. 3, the officer on special duty of the respondent University issued letters in the same of the petitioners for depositing a sum of Rs. 25/- by way of bank draft or crossed postal order on or before the 15th of February, 1986 in purported compliance with the direction of the Hon'ble High Court in the writ petition aforesaid. The petitioners complied with the said direction but nevertheless the publication of the result was inordinately delayed. Thereafter they approached respondent No. 3 who informed the petitioners that the direction in C.W.J.C. No. 2147 of 1983.*was with regard to the particular petitioners therein and not regarding others similarly situated and consequently the petitioners' result could not be published. Aggrieved thereby, the present writ petition has been preferred seeking a mandamus that the respondents be directed to publish the petitioners result forthwith. * or 1982 ......Ed.

(3.) In the counter-affidavit filed on behalf of the three respondents, the firm stand taken is that both the petitioners were not qualified or eligible at all to take the examination in view of the statutory provisions and the University regulations. It is categorically stated that the petitioners claim to be the students of the proposed L.N. Mishra Teachers' Training College, Saharsa, which was an unrecognised and unaffiliated institution. Since the transitory regulations framed by the Chancellor had come to an end, there was no provision whatsoever for the examinees of 1978 under which the students of the aforesaid institution could possibly be permitted to sit in the examination even as private candidates. The University, therefore, could not allow them to sit at the examination conducted by it under the relevant laws. Indeed the unaffiliated teachers' training colleges were not at all entitled to send their students to sit at these examinations conducted by the University for their students. It is then the case that the Principal of the Government Teachers' Training College Saharsa, fraudulently and in collusion with the Principal of the unrecognised and unaffiliated and as yet merely proposed L.N. Mishra Teachers' Training College forwarded the names of the petitioners and other students to sit in the examination as ex-students of the said Government College. This fraud could not be detected at the time of issuing of admit cards. However, when later this was, brought to the notice of the University at the eleventh hour, it was unable to prevent such unauthorised students from taking the examination because of the likely disturbance and breach of law and order. Hawever, Iater, on close perusal of the relevant records the petitioners and others similarly situated, who had masqueraded themselves as ex-students of the Government Teachers' Training College with the fraudulent concurrence of the Principal of that institution were identified and their results held up. The petitioners and others similarly situated, who were not students of any affiliated or recognised College, were, therefore, disentitled to sit at the examination at all even as private students. Indeed the firm stand of the University is that the purported L.N. Mishra Teachers' Training College does not in fact exist as an institution at all and the petitioners and others similarly situated have not completed their studies of the Bachelor of Education with an affiliated institution according to the Regulations of the respondent University. The admit cards were secured by the petitioners fraudulently in the circumstances delineated above. Express reliance has been placed on Regulation 4(2) of Chapter XXII of the Regulations and Regulations 18 and 37 of Chapter II of the said Regulations.