1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY BENCH AT AURANGABAD WRIT PETITION NO. 23 OF 2001 1. Gramodyogic Shikshan Mandal Satara Road, Aurangabad and another .. .. Petitioners Versus 1. The State of Maharashtra and others .. .. Respondents Shri Ajay S. Deshpande, Advocate for the Petitioners. Shri K. B. Choudhary, A.G.P. for the Respondents No. 1 to 4. Shri Vivek Dhage, Advocate for the Respondent No. 5. CORAM : A. P. DESHPANDE & N. D. DESHPANDE, JJ. DATE : 04TH JANUARY, 2010. ORAL ORDER [ PER A. P. DESHPANDE, J. ] : 1. The petitioners, after obtaining necessary permission and approval from the State Government and AICTE started a unaided engineering college some time in the year 1983-84. In the year 1999 the respondents restrained the petitioners from admitting students 2 on account of certain deficiencies. Thereafter, conditional permission was granted to admit the students. After the cut of date, as some seats had remained vacant, the petitioners admitted about 12 students directly. In the Rules of admission for the relevant year, there was no provision authorizing the management to fill in the seats directly. Thus, raising objection to the manner of admission of 12 students, the respondent imposed penalty on the petitioners in the sum of Rs. 32,000/- per student. The petitioners did pay the amount of penalty to the Government. 02. According to the petitioners, the petitioners were very much within their rights to admit the students directly, in view of the judgment in 'Unni Krishnan's' case. Whereas, according to the respondents the management could not have admitted the students and thus respondents were justified in imposing the penalty. Similar action was taken against other colleges/managements as well and in some cases management gave indemnity bond assuring the payment of penalty amount, etc. 03. The respondents took a decision to finally decide the issue of justifiability of imposing the penalty after the decision in a matter then pending before Supreme Court in Civil Appeal No. 2703/2000. Ultimately, the State Government decided to return the money to the institutions which were recovered by way of penalty. During pendency of this petition the respondents have returned the amount, is an admitted fact. 04. The reliefs sought in the present petition are three fold (1) 3 that the unfilled vacancies of the year 1999-2000 in the petitioner college be permitted to be carried forward for the academic year 2000-2001. This prayer is rendered infructuous on account of passage of time. The unfilled seats of the year 1999-2000 cannot be permitted to be carried forward. (2) to permit filling in equal number of seats in the second year of engineering course in the academic year 2000-2001. This prayer as well has become infructuous. 05. The last prayer is seeking direction to command the respondents to refund the amount of Rs. 3,84,000/- to the petitioners, which the petitioners had paid by way of penalty on account of admitting 12 students directly after the cut of date. We are informed at bar that the Government has returned back amount of Rs. 3,84,000/- to the petitioners. However, the amount was returned belatedly after lapse of about nine years. 06. Touching the last prayer learned counsel for the petitioners has contended that the Government is not justified in retaining the money for such a long time, when the Supreme Court disposed of the SLP way back in the year 2001. Thus the only prayer that is pressed in service is in regard to payment of interest on Rs. 3,84,000/-. In the facts of the present case, we are not inclined to consider the said prayer favourably. The Government has returned the money though belatedly. We are also convinced that in the year 1999-2000 the rules of admission did not permit the college/management to admit the student directly after the cut of date. Penalty was imposed on all similarly situate colleges. Hence 4 we are not inclined to direct the State to pay interest. In that view of the matter, the present writ petition stands disposed of as infructuous. [ N. D. DESHPANDE, J.] [ A. P. DESHPANDE, J.] bsb/Jan. 2010