Appeal No 328 of 1962
Appeal by special leave from the judgment and order dated September 4 1961 of the Allahabad High Court in Civil Misc
writ No 3469 of 1960
K L Misra Advocate General for the State of U P C B Agarwala K section Hajela and C P Lal for the appellants
section P Sinha and M 1
Khowaja for respondent No 1 1962
August 27
The Judgement of the Court was delivered by GAJENDRAGADKAR J
This appeal by special leave arises out of a Writ Petition filed by the respondent Bagleshwar Prasad against the Board of High School and Intermediate Education U P Allahabad and its Secretary appellants 1  2 and another
By his petition the respondent challenged the validity of the order passed by appellant No 1 on December 5 1960 cancelling the respondent s result at the High School Examination held in 1960
It appears that the respondent appeared for the said examination from the Nehru Intermediate College Centre Bindki
He was declared to have passed the said examination in the 11 Division with distinction in article Thereafter he joined Intermediate first year class in the Kulbaskar Ashram Agriculture College at Allahabad
On the 3rd September 1960 he received a letter from the Principal Adarsh Higher Secondary School Kora Jahanabad from where he had appeared for the High School examination calling upon him to appear before a Sub Committee to answer the charge of having used unfair means in English 769 Mathematics and Hindi papers
Accordingly he appeared before the said Sub Committee
A charge was given to him and his explanation was obtained on the said charge
This charge was based on the fact that in Hindi 3rd paper set at the said examination the respondent had given wrong answers to Question No 4 in precisely the same firm in which the said answers had been given by a candidate whose Roll No was 91733
The respondont s Roll No was 91731
The respondent was shown the identical wrong answers to the said Question which were found in the two papers and he was asked to explaining about the said identity of the wrong answers
He admitted that the wrong answers appeared to be identical but he denied that he had used any unfair means
The Sub Committee however was not satisfied with the explanation and reported that both the respondent and the candidate whose Roll No was 94733 had used unfair means
As a result of the report made by the Sub Committee the first appellant passed an order cancelling the results of both the candidates
Both the said candidates disputed the validity of the said order in the Allahabad High Court
The petition filed by the candidate whose Roll No was 94733 was dismissed but that of the respondent was allowed and the impugned order passed by appellant No 1 cancelling the result of the respondent in the High School examination for 1960 has been set aside
It is against this order that the appellants have come to this Court by special leave
From the petition field by the the High Court W P No 3469 of 1960 it appears that he challenged the validity of the impugned order on several grounds
The principal contentions raised by the petitioner against the competence and the authority of appellant No1 and against the regularity and fairness of the enquiry held srose for decision before the High Court in the companion W P No 3196 of 1960 also
The High 770 Court rejected the said contentions of law in that W P and for the reasons recorded in the judgment in that petition the said contentions were rejected even in the present petition
Thus the challenge to the validity of the order made on points of law was not sustained
The High Court then proceeded to examine the narrow ground of attack against the validity of the order which was made on the basis that the impugned order was not supported by any evidence at all
It appears from the judgment of the High Court that the High court was inclined to accept this argument and it has set aside the order on the ground that it is not supported by any evidence
The correctness of this finding is seriously disputed before us by the learned Advocate General who appears for the appellants
It is common ground that the proceed in taken against the respondent in respect of the unfair means alleged to have been adopted by him at the examination are in the nature of quasi judicial proceedings and as such in a proper case orders passed as a result of the said proceedings would be liable to be challenged under Art226 of the Constitution
It is also common ground that the High Court would be justified in quashing the impugned order if it is satisfied that the said order is not based on any evidence at all
An order passed by a Tribunal holding a quasi judicial enquiry which is not supported by any evidence is an order which is erroneous on the face of it and as such is liable to be quashed by the High Court in exercise of its high prerogative jurisdiction to issue a writ under article 226
In the present case the High Court has found that the conclusion of the enquiry Committee that the respondent had copied either from the answer book of the candidate bearing Roll No 947 3 or 771 from a common source was not supported by any evidence In coming to this conclusion the High Court has assumed that the charge against the respondent was that he had copied from the candidate bearing Roll No 94733
Having made this assumption the High Court has observed that there was no charge against the respondent that he connived in the act of copying by the other candidate from his answer book and it has added that there is no evidence in proof of such connivance
The High Court has also stated that no evidence had been shown to justify the allegations that any outsider had helped the candidate including the respondent
That in brief is the genesis of the final conclusion of the High Court
It appears that the High Court was in error in assuming that the only charge against the respondent was that he had copied from the paper of the candidate bearing Roll No 94733 and this error is basically responsible for the other observations made by the High Court
The translation of the charge as it has been printed in the record before us no doubt seems to support the assumption made by the High Court in regard to the nature of the charge  But the charge was framed in Hindi and it is common ground before us that the Hindi charge has not been properly translated from the record when it seems to show that what was alleged against the respondent was only that he had copied out from candidate bearing Roll No 94733
The charge in terms was that having regard to the identity of the mistaken answers the apprehension was that there had been copying and that is very different from saying that the only charge was that the respondent had copied from the other candidate
This position is made very clear when we consider the explanation given by the respondent
In his explanation the respondent bad 772 stated that he had not copied out from the answer  book of any candidate nor had he allowed anyone to copy out from his answer book so far as he could
He admitted that the mistaken answers in the two papers were identical and he pleaded that he could not say any thing as to why this happened
He was also asked whether he had got any help from outside and he gave an answer in the negative
It would thus be seen that at the enquiry the charge against the respondent was either that he copied from candidate bearing Roll No 94733 or that he connived at the said candidate copying from his answer book or that both of them had copied from a common source
In either case it would amount to the adoption of unfair means
Therefore in our opinion the High Court was in error in assuming that the charge was very narrow and did not include the two other alternatives on which the adoption of unfair means was sought to be established
There is another circumstance which is relevant and significant and that has been ignored by the High Court in dealing with this petition It appears that at the examination held at Bindki Centre unfair means were adopted on a very large scale by a large number of students and the examination appears to have been conducted in an atmosphere which was not at all congenial to the enforcement of the discipline which has to be observed in conducting examinations
It appears that there are rivalries and party politics in the Municipal Board of Bindki that runs the institution at which this examination was held and there are rivalries and party politics even amongst the members of the staff
The members of the Municipal Board and other influential people of the locality bring undue pressure on the Principal and the Invigilators to help their wards or the wards 773 of their friends and relatives in the Board s Examination
As a result of this unhealthy atmosphere the Centre at Bindki for High School examination had been abolished for some years but on account of public pressure it was re started in 1960 and the result was very unfortunate
It also appears that on the day of English paper while students were answering the paper in Room No 3 an answer paper by some outsider was dropped into the room 15 minutes before the time to answer questions was over  This paper was thrown in room No 3 from room No 18
It was a typed paper giving answers to all the Questions
The Assistant teacher Khajuha who was one of the Invigilators complained that the Parcha was typed in the office of the Superintendent of the Centre but this allegation was denied
Indeed from the reports made by the invigilators and the findings made by the Enquiry Committee it appears that the Invigilators themselves were so much frightened by the prevailing rowdyism and by pressure from influential people that they found themselves powerless to maintain discipline in the examination hall
It is therefore not surprising that some invigilators could not prevent copying and in fact six of them had to be warned to be careful in future
The report of the enquiry committee also shows that the complaints which they were to investigate referred to copying on a large scale in several papers besides Hindi and it is after examining all the complaints in the light of the evidence available to them that the Committee made its final report and in that report it held that the respondent and candidate bearing Roll No 94733 were guilty of having used unfair means
774 In dealing with the question as to whether the Committee was justified in coming to this conclusion against the respondent it would not be reasonable to exclude from consideration the circumstances under which the whole enquiry came to be hold and the general background of the prevailing disturbed and riotous atmosphere in the Examination Hall during the days that the High School Examination was held at the Centre in 1960
Unfortunately the High Court has ignored this background altogether
Before the High Court a statement was filed showing the seating arrangement in Room No 10 where the respondent was sitting for writing his answers
It appears that he was No 3 in the 3rd row whereas the other candidate with Roll No 94733 was No 4 in the second row
The High Court was very much impressed by the fact that the respondent could not have looked back and copied from the answer
book of the other candidate and the High Court did not think that there was any evidence to show that the other candidate could have copied from the respondents paper with his connivance
We have looked at the incorrect answers ourselves and we are not prepared to hold that the identical incorrect answers were given by the two candidates either by accident or by coincidence
Some of the incorrect answers and particularly the manner in which they have been given clearly suggest that they were the result of either one candidate copying from the other or both candidates copying from a common source
The significance of this fact has been completely missed by the High Court
The question before the Enquiry Committee had to be decided by it in the light of the nature of the incorrect answers themselves and that is what the Enquiry Committee has done
It would we think 775 be inappropriate in such a case to require direct evidence to show that the respondent could have looked back and copied from the answer written by the other candidate who was sitting behind him
There was still the alternative possibility that the candidate sitting behind may have copied from the respondent with his connivance
It is also not unlikely that the two candidates may have talked to each other
The atmosphere prevailing in the Examination Hall does not rule out this possibility
These are all matters which the Enquiry Committee had to consider and the fact
that the Enquiry Committee did not write an elaborate report does not mean that it did not consider all the relevant facts before it came to the conclusion that the respondent had used unfair  means
In dealing with petitions of this type it is necessary to bear in mind that educational institutions like the Universities or appellant No 1 set up Enquiry Committees to deal with the problem posed by the adoption of unfair means by candidates and normally it is within the jurisdiction of such domestic Tribunals to decide all relevant questions in the light of the evidence adduced before them
In the matter of the adoption of unfair means direct evidence may sometimes be available but cases may arise where direct evidence is not available and the question will have to be considered in the light of probabilities and circumstantial evidence
This problem which educational institutions have to face from time to time is a serious problem and unless there is justification to do so courts should be slow to interfere with the decisions of domestic Tribunals appointed by educational bodies like the Universities
In dealing with the validity of the impugned orders passed by Universities under article 226 the High Court is not sitting in appeal over the decision in question its jurisdiction is limited and though 776 it is true that if the impugned order is not supported by any evidence at all the High Court would be justified to quash that order
But the conclusion that the impugned order is not supported by any evidence must be reached after considering the question as to whether probabilities and circumstantial evidence do not justify the said conclusion
Enquiries held by domestic Tribunals in such cases must no doubt be fair and students against whom charges are framed must be given adequate opportunities to defend themselves and in holding such enquiries the Tribunal must scrupulously follow rules of natural justice but it would we think not be reasonable to import into these enquiries all considerations which govern criminal trials in ordinary courts of law
In the present case no animus is suggested and no malafides have been pleaded
The enquiry has been fair and the respondent has had an opportunity of making his defence
That being so we think the High Court was not justified in interfering with the order passed against the respondent
We ought however to add that though we are inclined to accept the argument raised by the learned Advocate General against the decision of the High Court we do not propose to make any consequential order is favour of the appellants because the learned Advocate General has fairly conceded that he does not want any such order in the present appeal
It appears that the respondent has in June 1962 passed his Intermediate Examination and it has been fairly conceded that there is no intention to disturb his career under the present circumstances
The learned Advocate General wanted a decision from us in this appeal because he apprehended that the reasoning adopted by the High Court in setting aside the order passed against the respondent may be construed to mean that 777 under article 226 the High Court can examine the merits of the order passed by appellant No 1 in such cases
The result is though we agree with the appellants that the order passed by the High Court was not justified we refrain from setting it aside for the reasons just explained
There would be no order as to costs


Summary:
The appellant Board cancelled the declaration of the result of the respondent in the High School Certificate Examination held in 1960 accepting the findings of the subcommittee appointed by it to enquire into the charges made against the respondent and another candidate of having used unfair means in answering the English Mathematics and Hindi papers
The charges were based upon the fact that in the Hindi 3rd paper set at the said examination the respondent gave wrong answers to Question No 4 in precisely the same form in which the answers had been given by the candidate whose Roll number was consecutive with that of the respondent
The High Court interpreting the charge as confined to that the respondent had copied either from the answer book of the candidate bearing the consecutive Roll Number or from a common source held that the findings of the enquiry committee were based on no evidence and quashed the cancellation of the result
On appeal by special leave
Held that in the circumstances of the case the identity of the wrong answers given by the respondent with that of the other candidate bearing the consecutive Roll Number rendered the charge of the respondent having employed unfair means highly probable and that the findings of the enquiry committee based upon such probabilities and circumstantial evidence could not be said to be based on no evidence as in such matters direct evidence quite often cannot be available
Held further that in dealing with cases like those of educational institutions dealing with matters of discipline like employing unfair means the problem faced by the educational institutions should be appreciated by the High Court and so long as the enquiry held is fair and affords the candidate an opportunity to defend himself the matter should 768 not be examined with the same strictness as applicable to criminal trials in the ordinary courts of law