CWP No. 10997 of 2010 [1] IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB & HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH CWP No. 10997 of 2010 Date of Decision: 01.11.2011 Monica Aggarwal and others ...Petitioners Versus Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak & another ..Respondents. CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SURYA KANT 1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment ? 2. Whether to be referred to the Reporters or not ? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? Present : Mr. Sudhir Aggarwal, Advocate, for the petitioners. Mr. Anurag Goyal, Advocate, for Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak Mr. R.D.Sharma, Deputy Advocate General, Haryana. **** SURYA KANT, J.(Oral) This order shall dispose of Civil Writ Petitions No. 10997, 11011, 11021, 11027, 11028, 11029, 11030, 11031, 11032, 11034, 11035, 11036, 11037, 11038, 11039, 11050, 11051 and 11052 of 2010 as common issues are involved in these cases. For brevity the facts are taken from Civil Writ Petition No. 10997 of 2010. The petitioners are students of B.Ed. Course in Jindal College of Education for Girls, Sohna, District Gurgaon. They seek CWP No. 10997 of 2010 [2] quashing of letter dated 01.04.2010 (Annexure P-7) and notice dated 16.04.2010 (Annexure P-8) whereby Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak has cancelled their admissions on the plea that “admission of these students have been made without reference to the merit and sanctioned seats of B.Ed. Course for the session 2009-10.” The undisputed facts are that for admission to B.Ed. Course for the academic session 2009-10 the eligible candidates are required to submit online application forms to Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak which in turn prepared a combined merit list and allocated students to different colleges as per their preferences. The students were required to be admitted by these colleges in the presence of the 'University Observers' who were deputed to remain present in the colleges during the prescribed dates for admissions i.e. 08.10.2009 to 12.10.2009. The above-stated arrangement was made/approved by this Court in a bunch of writ petitions filed by the Self Financed Private B.Ed. Colleges to enable them to fill up 32,546 seats meant for Haryana Residents which had remained vacant in different colleges. The arrangement approved by this Court vide order dated 17.09.2009 was in the following terms:- “(a) The concerned College will issue a public notice notifying unfilled seats available with it after allocation in the final counselling by the respondent-University. This notice shall be published in two national newspapers, one English and one vernacular having wide circulation between 01.10.2009 to 3.10.2009.These seats shall be offered, firstly to the applicants who have applied for counselling/admission to the respondent-University. The counselling/ admission to fill up the seats from the applicants who have already applied to the respondent-University shall CWP No. 10997 of 2010 [3] be held from 4.10.2009 to 7.10.2009. The unfilled seats after providing opportunity to the applicants shall be filled up from the non-applicants. This condition shall also be notified in the same public notice. The counselling/admission will be open to both non- residents and the residents of Haryana State and will be held from 08.10.2009 to 12.10.2009. b) No admission shall be made by any college thereafter notwithstanding the availability of the seats in any of the College in the State of Haryana. c) The Colleges will make admissions on the basis of the inter se merits of the non-applicants who may seek admission pursuant to the public notice issued by the Colleges. d) The College will not charge any extra fee, other than the free prescribed by the respondent- University/Government. e) The fee shall be deposited by the candidates in accordance with the norms/procedure already prescribed by the respondent-University/Government. f) It will also be notified in the Public Notice that the students who will be granted admission will deposit the fee within one week from the date of admission in accordance with the norms/procedure prescribed by the respondent-University/Government in this regard. g) The affiliating University shall nominate one representative to be associated in the process of counselling/admission by each of the college. Such nomination shall be made before the date notified hereinabove for counselling/admission by the colleges. If the respondent-University fails to nominate its representative or if the nominated representative fails to approach the college concerned, the College may proceed to hold counselling/admission in the absence of such representative with prior intimation to the respondent-University in this regard. h) All the Colleges after making admissions will submit a list of admitted candidates along with their details and merit position to the respondent University within a period of 10 days from the date of such admissions and the respondent-University shall have the right to CWP No. 10997 of 2010 [4] conduct scrutiny in accordance with the norms/procedure laid down by it.” It would thus be seen that in terms of the direction (a) reproduced above, the last counselling was to be held w.e.f. 8.10.2009 to 12.10.2009. The candidates who came forward to seek admission in one or the other Self Financed Private Colleges, namely, the respondents in these cases, were admitted in the presence of the 'Observers' appointed by the University and their admission forms were duly signed and verified by those Observers. The petitioners herein are undisputedly among those students who have not been admitted by the respondent(s) colleges in the presence of the Observers appointed by the University and their admission forms are not signed or verified by the Observers. The only plea taken by the students of the private colleges is that the Observers appointed by the University were not present on 12.10.2009 while they got admissions. It is obvious that most of the petitioners have been granted admission ignoring the combined merit list prepared by the University. When the matter came up for hearing on 12.10.2011, the following order was passed by this Court:- “ Let the Observers of the M.D. University file their respective affidavits to the following effect:- 1. That they were appointed as Observer by the University for the purpose of admission in B.Ed. for which counselling was declared to be held w.e.f. ;08.10.2009 to 12.10.2009. 2. That they were physically present in college CWP No. 10997 of 2010 [5] for counselling on the afore-mentioned dates and that candidates were given admission in the College, as per their merit, under the signature of such Observers. 3. That the petitioner(s) never appeared in the College during the counselling.” In compliance thereto, the University has placed on record affidavits of most of the observers i.e. 13 out of 19 and each one of them has stated on oath that they were present in their respective colleges from 08.10.2009 till 12.10.2009 and had signed the admission forms of each student admitted during those days. The petitioners and the Self Financed Private Colleges, though have alleged that they were admitted on 12.10.2009 and the University Observers were not present, nevertheless their plea, on the face of it, appears to be an after thought to justify the admissions made by the respondent colleges through backdoor entries to charge exorbitant fee from the students who could not in the ordinary course have got admissions as per their merit, if there had been a transparent and fair methodology adopted for admissions. The respondent University was, therefore, well within its right and fully justified in cancelling the admissions and such like harsh action is the needy hour to stop malpractices being adopted by the Self Financed Private Colleges. Moreover, the explanation/plea taken by the petitioners or their respective colleges being a disputed question of fact need not to be gone into by this Court in exercise of its writ jurisdiction. Since no motive has been attributed to the University or the observers, the plea taken by the University is accepted and the explanation putforth CWP No. 10997 of 2010 [6] by the petitioners and their respective colleges is hereby rejected. The matter, however, does not come to an end here. Notwithstanding the fact that the admissions were cancelled on 01.04.2010, the petitioners chose to approach this Court during 'summer vacations' and when this petition came up for hearing on 14.06.2010, a Co-ordinate Bench permitted them to appear in the B.Ed. examinations which were to commence w.e.f. 18.06.2010. It is pertinent to mention here that the before approaching this Court some of the petitioners approached the Civil Courts and having failed to get an ad-interim injunction that these writ petitions were filed. There is a predicament to follow the strict rule of law in consonance of Article 14 of the Constitution on one hand and 'equitable consideration' in favour of the allured students who somehow wanted to obtain B.Ed. degree and do not hesitate in shedding hefty fee for such admissions on the other. The equitable considerations have been further compounded by the interim order permitting the petitioners to appear in the B.Ed. examination. Unfortunately, B.Ed. course is of one year and the resultant effect is that the petitioners have completed the course and appeared in the examination. The only incomplete formality at this stage is the declaration of their result. This Court cannot be oblivious of the fact that any lenient view at this stage would encourage the Colleges to innovate more and more dubious methods to bypass the principle of merit and admit the students through dirty lames may be for extraneous or other considerations. CWP No. 10997 of 2010 [7] Keeping in view the totality of the circumstances, I deem it appropriate to dispose of these writ petitions with the following directions:- i) Each College, found guilty of granting admissions to the students in B.Ed. course on or after 12.10.2009 without permission/consent of the Observers appointed by the University, is subjected to penalty of ` One lac which shall be deposited by them with the University within two weeks from the date of receipt of a certified copy of this order. ii) No amount of penalty shall be recoverable by the colleges from the students and the University authorities in this regard shall be at liberty to hold surprise inspection or inquiry at random, if so required. iii) In case a College is found to have recovered the amount of penalty from the students, such college shall be deemed to have been 'de-recognized' and its affiliations shall stand withdrawn automatically from the next academic session. iv) Subject to compliance of the above stated directions by the Colleges, the result of the petitioners shall be declared by the University within two weeks thereafter. CWP No. 10997 of 2010 [8] v) The University authorities shall evolve a better and more effective mechanism from the next academic session to ensure that the admissions are made strictly as per merit only. vi) One of the method can be to depute the Observers soon after the last cut off date for admissions and inspect the records of the colleges and obtain a list of the admitted students duly signed by the Principal and the President of the Governing Body of each college. The expenditure to be incurred by the University on such inspections shall be recoverable in advance from the colleges. Dasti. 01.11.2011 (SURYA KANT) 'ravinder' JUDGE