Punjab-Haryana High Court
The Punjab School Education Board, ... vs Harinder Kaur Chandhok (Minor) on 18 December, 1989
Equivalent citations: AIR1991P&H31, AIR 1991 PUNJAB AND HARYANA 31
ORDER M. S. Liberhan, J.
1. This judgment will dispose of Letters Patent Appeals Nos. 426, 427 and 434 of 1987, Civil Writ Petitions Nos. 1986, 1987, 2209, 2233, 2246, 2243, 2251, 2326, 2417, 2427, all of 1988, and 9328 of 1989. The facts are taken from Letters Patent Appeal No. 426 of 1987.
2. The skeletal facts leading to this Letters Patent Appeal are these. Harinder Kaur Chandhok (Minor) was a student in St. Francis School, Amritsar. She took Matriculation Examination in March, 1986 held by the Punjab School Education Board (hereinafter called the Board). The respondent failed and successfully took the Supplementary Examination held in September, 1986. She submitted her Admission Form for 'Plus one' Examination. Requisite fee was deposited with the Board. The fee so deposited was found to be deficient. Resultantly, vide letter, dated April 1, 1987, the Board asked her to remit the balance amount of Rs. 145/-. As the Admission Form was found to be in order and the deficiency in the fee was made good, the respondent took her Examination on April 3, 1987.
3. The Board cancelled the candidature of the respondent, inter alia, on the ground, that she had passed the Matriculation Examination in September, 1986 and appeared in 'plus one' Examination in April, 1987, thus the condition of one year's gap between the two Examinations was not fulfilled and she was not entitled to appear in the Examination.
4. The respondent brought to the notice of the Board that hundreds of candidates who were similarly situated as the respondent, were permitted to take the Examination and their result was declared. So, there was no basis or reason to cancel the candidature of the respondent.
5. The order of cancellation was challenged in Civil Writ Petition No. 4751 of 1987 : AIR 1988 P & H 244. It was held vide order, dated September 1, 1987 that the order of cancellation was unfair and arbitrary, for the reason that it was not expected of the minor student to have known the condition of a lapse of one year between her passing the Matriculation Examination and appearing in 'plus one' Examination. The object and purpose of appearing in the Supplementary Matriculation Examination would be completely lost as the student would lose one year and would not be entitled to appear in the next Supplementary Examination of the next class, as the Supplementary Examination is open for the specified candidates like the failed students. The respondent having not been permitted to appear in the Examination held in April, would not fall in any of the categories permitted to take the Supplementary Examination. Her Admission Form was duly attested by the Principal of the Institution and accepted by the Board with respect to her eligibility after due scrutiny by its Officers. It would be unfair and unjust on the part of the Board to cancel her candidature at a later point of time when she had successfully appeared in the next Examination. Consequently, the order of the Board cancelling her candidature was quashed and a writ of mandamus was issued directing the Board to declare her result.
6. The learned counsel for the appellant-Board contended that the admission of the respondent was provisional and subject to the confirmation of her eligibility to appear in the Examination in question. The respondent passed Matriculation Examination in Sept., 1986 and took the Examination for the next class held in April, 1987. The Board, in accordance with Regulation 5A of the Punjab School Education Board Senior Secondary Certificate Examination Parti Regulations 1986 (hereinafter referred to as Regulations 1986) found the respondent to be not eligible to take the Examination, as the period of one academic year between the two Examinations had not expired. It was contended that the vires of the Regulations 1986 were upheld by this Court. While upholding the vires the Division Bench of this Court (in Anjana Gulati minor v. The Punjab School Education Board, Civil Writ Petition No. 4863 of 1987, decided on March 15, 1988) : (1988) 3 Serv LR 748, did not approve the ratio in the respondent's case and it was expressly overruled. In order to support his contention. The learned counsel for the appellant relied on Rakesh Kumari v. Punjab School Education Board, AIR 1988 Punjab and Haryana 241.
7. The learned counsel for the respondent refuted the submissions made by the counsel for the appellant and contended that it was not an essential requisite under the Rules that one calendar year must pass between the date of passing the Examination and taking the Examination of the next class. It was contended that the very object of holding the Supplementary Examination would frustrate, in case the interpretation put by the appellant is permitted, apart from the fact that the proposed interpretation is unrealistic and would result in injustice. It was contended that in Letters Patent Appeal cited by the counsel for the respondent the controversy in dispute was not under consideration. It was the vires of Regulation 5A which was being considered. There is no dispute with respect to the vires of Regulation 5A in this Letters Patent Appeal. The ratio of the judgment under appeal has been confirmed by a Division Bench judgment of this Court in Civil Writ Petition No. 2307 of 1988 (Surinder Pal Singh v. Punjabi University, decided on April 4, 1988).
8. The counsel for the respondent further pressed into service the rule of promissory estoppel as well as the principle of equity, justice and good conscience contending that the respondent took the Examination and the appellant did not raise any objection to it. Now that she had passed the Examination, the result should not be cancelled at this belated stage as it would not cause loss of only one year but much more period would be lost as the respondent would not be able to take the higher Examination when three years have already passed. Thus, the respondent would be made to suffer in her educational career for three years for no laspe or active participation in any fraud on her part. Nothing was kept back by the respondent while submitting her admission form, nor any such thing had been pointed out in the order. The respondent is minor. The learned counsel for the respondent relied on Rajendra Prasad Mathur v. Karnataka University and Vijay Kumar Sharma v. Karnataka University, AIR 1986 SC 1448, A.P. Christians Medical Educational Society v. Government of Andhra Pradesh and Alice Monoranjani M. v. Government of Andhra Pradesh, AIR 1986 SC 1490; A. Sudha v. University of Mysore, AIR 1987 SC 2305 and Bhupinderjeet v. Punjab University, 1989'(3) SLR 372, as well as on Letters Patent Appeal No. 294 of 1988 (Mahnca Singh v. The State of Punjab, decided on May 17, 1989).
9. We have heard the learned counsel for the parties at length. Reference may be made to the Regulations 1986, wherein 'Private Candidate' has been defined under Regulation 3(d) as follows :
" 'Private Candidate' means the candidate allowed to appear in the examination as a private candidate under Regulation 6".
Under Regulation 3(e) 'School/College candidate' has been defined to mean a candidate admitted to the examination as a student of an affiliated institution.
10. Regulation 4(b) of the Regulations 1986 provides as under :
"The examination shall be held twice a year. The Annual Examination shall ordinarily be held every year in the month of April and the Supplementary Examination in the month of September at such centres and on such dates and at such time as may be fixed by the Chairman from time to time."
11. Regulations provides the eligibility for Examination and condition for eligibility of regular candidates, which is in the following terms :
"5. Eligibility for Examination :
A. The Senior Secondary Certificate Examination Part-I shall be open to a person who has passed not less than one academic year previously :
i) Matriculation or Secondary School Examination of this Board.
ii) Any other examination recognised by Board equivalent to the examinations mentioned at (i) above.
B. Conditions for eligibility of regular candidates :
A candidate shall be eligible to appear in the examination if;
(a) he has been on the rolls of an institution affiliated to the Board throughout the academic year preceding the examination.
(b) his name has been struck off the rolls of an affiliated institution after the submission of his application for admission and he is re-admitted before the 14th day of commencement of the examination, provided he fulfils the other conditions required for the purpose.
(c) his name has been submitted to the Board by the Principal of an affiliated institution, he has most recently attended and produced the following certificates signed by the Principal :--
i) he has attended not less than 75% of the full course of lectures and practicals (if applicable)......"
Conditions for eligibility of regular candidates, an academic year has been defined to be counted from 1st of May to 30th of April.
12. Regulation 6 provides the conditions for appearing as a private candidate at the annual examination, which reads as under :
"Notwithstanding above, the following shall be eligible to appear as a private candidate at the annual examination :
(a) (i) Late School/College Student, who has completed the required percentage of attendances for an examination and are recommended by the Head of the Institution concerned for admission to such examination.
(ii) Any person who has failed in the Pre-University Examination of the University or its equivalent examination.
(iii) Any candidate who could not appear due to shortage of attendances and percentage of marks and later on fulfils these conditions.
(b) Further, the following categories of candidates shall also be eligible to appear as a private candidate at the annual examination in the Humanities, Commerce and Fine Arts groups only.
Note :-- xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx
(i) A candidate who has passed Matriculation/or its equivalent examination at least one academic year previously.
(ii) xxx xxx xxx
(iii) A candidate who has completed the required number of attendances may take the examination as a private candidate provided he produces no objection certificate from the principal of the affiliated institution and pays the examination fee prescribed for the private candidates. If his admission form has already been sent, he can appear as a private candidate by paying Rs. 10/- in order to change his capacity from regular to private candidate. This change shall be allowed up to 15 days before the commencement of the examination."
13. Regulation 8(d) authorises the Board to cancel the result of the ineligible candidates. It reads as under :
"If a candidate, subsequent to the issue of Roll Number or subsequent to appearance in an examination and declaration of result, is found to be ineligible to take the examination, his candidature shall be cancelled/result quashed by the Secretary."
It further authorises the Board to cancel the result of a candidate who wilfully suppresses/ neglects to disclose information pertaining to a previous disqualification incurred by him for a period of two to three years.
14. Attestation of Forms has been provided under Regulation 9 in case of regular students by the Head of the Institution and in case of private students by the Head of Institution last attended etc. etc.
15. Regulation 7 provides that Supplementary Examination was made available only to a limited number of candidates i.e. those who have failed in the examination etc. etc. Regulation 7 reads as under :
"The supplementary examination shall be open only to the following candidates :--
i) Those who have appeared in the Examination and failed;
ii) Those who have been placed under compartment in the examination;
iii) Those who have completed the prescribed number of attendances for annual examination but could not appear in it.
iv) Those who were unable to appear in the annual examination on account of deficiency in the number of attendances and who have made up the deficiency later on;
v) Those who are appearing in additional subject or group only.
16. On a reading of the provisions of the Regulations 1986, we are of the opinion that though Regulation 5A would not be attracted to the facts and circumstances of the case in hand, yet the provisions can be read to mean that candidate shall be admitted to take the Senior Secondary Certificate Examination on fulfilling Condition No. 1 i.e. he has passed Matriculation or Secondary School Certificate in not less than one academic year previously before taking the Examination. Since academic year has been defined from 1st of May to 30th of April, it cannot be assumed that passing of the Examination from the Supplementary Examination held would be taken as not passing in the academic year. The passing of the Examination would by necessary implication relate back to the date of the passing of the annual examination. The respondent would be deemed to have passed the examination in the year held in April. The word 'Suplementary' itself denotes supplementing to or in other words in continuation of the annual examination. It was not disputed at the bar that the regular students having failed are given provisional admission in the next higher class. Any further interpretation would demonstrate how maladroit and clumsy is the approach adopted by the authorities towards the career of a student. On the one hand, it was contended that Supplementary Examination was a concession given to the students, on the other hand, an attempt ought to be made to deny the benefit of the concession by imposing the restriction by interpretation of Regulation 5 of the Regulations, 1986.
17. In our considered view, the narrow approach suggested by the counsel for the appellant to the interpretation of the Regulation would lead to undoing the very object and purpose of the Regulations providing for a Supplementary Examination. The literal interpretation would lead to absurdity which should be avoided. Patent injustice and inequities are to be avoided when the meanings are being given to the Regulation and such an interpretation appears to have been put by the Board when they accepted the Form and permitted the student to take the Examination. However at a later stage, an attempt to put a hyper-technical interpretation was made which resulted in reducing the provisions of the Regulations to be without life and contrary to the very object of providing for a Supplementary Examination for the limited category of students.
18. Be that as it may, even otherwise, Regulation 5B of the Regulations, 1986 has been an Exception carved out to Regulation 5A. Regulation 5A cannot be read as a condition of eligibility in case of regular candidates. It has nowhere been provided that in case of regular candidates there is to be a time-gap of one academic year between his passing the last Examination and taking the Examination of a next higher class. Un-disputely, the respondent was a regular candidate.
19. Reading the provisions together, as produced above, we are of the opinion that it was not essential that one calendar year must be lapsed between the passing of an Examination and taking the next higher Examination. This fact becomes more obvious and clear as has been pointed out by the counsel for the respondent that for the year 1988-89 the Supplementary Examination has been further restricted only to the candidates who have been placed under compartment/reappear or to those who are appearing in additional subjects. Thus, Supplementary Examination has been closed to the failed candidates.
20. The learned single Judge, keeping the equity in view and relying on Rajendra Prasad Mathur's case (AIR 1986 SC 1448), wherein it has been observed :
".....Now it is true that the appellants were not eligible for admission to the Engineering Degree Course and they had no legitimate claim to such admission. But it must be noted that the blame for their wrongful admission must lie more upon the Engineering Colleges which granted admission than upon the appellants. It is quite possible that the appellants did not know that neither the Higher Secondary Examination of the Secondary Education Board, Rajasthan nor the first year B.Sc. Examination of the Rajasthan and Udaipur Universities was recognised as equivalent to the Pre-University Examination of the Pre-University Education Board, Bangalore. The appellants being young students from Rajasthan might have presumed that since they had passed the first year B.Sc. Examination of the Rajasthan or Udaipur University or in any event the Higher Secondary Examination of the Secondary Education Board, Rajasthan, they were eligible for admission. The fault lies with the Engineering Colleges which admitted the appellants because the Principals of those Engineering Colleges must have known that the appellants were not eligible for admission and yet for the sake of capitation fee in some of the cases they granted admission to the appellants. We do not see why the appellants should suffer for the sins of the management of these Engineering Colleges."
Came to the conclusion that the respondent cannot be made to suffer for no fault of her, and resultantly found that the appellant-Board is estopped in equity, justice and good conscience from cancelling the result of the respondent.
21. It is obvious in view of the facts stated above, that nothing was attributed to the respondent as an overt act intentionally made on her part for misleading the Board to issue her Roll No. and permit her to take the Examination or for getting any fact attested wrongly from the Principal of the Institution who is supposed to be well conversant with the rules and regulations of the Boards and a minor is not expected to know the provisions of the Regulations for taking the Examination, much less the hyper-technical and strict interpretation proposed to be put forward by the Board at a later point of time. The respondent cannot be visited with such a drastic and inhuman penalty of depriving her of virtually two/three years of her educational career by cancelling her result, as it would be obvious that in case her result for the Examination held in 1987 is cancelled, she would not be able to take the Examination in April 1987, April 1988, September 1988 and April, 1989. That means the clock will be put back by three years. Instead of doing justice, it would amount to perpetuating injustice and particularly in the field of education when the object of the society is to provide more and more opportunities in educational field to enable the people to improve their educational qualifications. We are supported in our view by the following observations in Letters Patent Appeal No. 294 of 1988 (Mehnga Singh v. The State of Punjab, decided on May 17, 1989)"..... However, in the circumstances of this particular case, we are of the view that, though we do not want to hold as a matter of law that the appellant is eligible to continue his studies on the basis of the selection made as a Scheduled Caste candidate, on equitable grounds we should permit the candidate to complete the course especially because the appellant has passed the first year examination had also completed nine months in the second year's course before the writ petition was filed and three months after the writ petition was filed in pursuance of the order of this Court and he has written the examination. It would be a great hardship to the appellant if ultimately we have to retrace the whole step and declare that whatever he has done in the two years is not valid and even if we had to do it as required by law, we may not be justified in doing it....."
22. The apex Court of the country in A. Sudha's case, AIR 1987 SC 2305 wherein an admission to M.B.B.S. Course was challenged on the ground that the student did not fulfill the eligibility conditions of securing 50 per cent marks in B.Sc. necessary for admission even after observing, "Even assuming that the said Rules are applicable to the case of the appellant, still the appellant will not be eligible for admission in the First Year M.B.B.S. Course in view of sub-rule (5) of R. 4 of the said Rules, which provides, inter alia, that a person who does not belong to any of the Schedule Castes or Scheduled Tribes, he has to obtain 50% of marks in P.U.C. or equivalent examination in Physics, Chemistry and Biology as optional subjects. Thus, the appellant was not eligible for admission in the First Year M.B.B.S. Course of Mysore University....."
allowed the candidate to prosecute her studies in the M.B.B.S. Course.
23. In Bhupinderjeet's case ((1989) 3 Sev LR 372), it was observed as follows :
".....If nothing could be attributable to the conduct of the candidate and the fault, if any, lies with the Colleges authorities or with the negligence of the University staff, the petitioner could not be penalised for the same. In view of the Supreme Court judgment reported in Shri Krishan v. Kurukshetra University, AIR 1976 SC 376, wherein it was held that once the candidate is allowed to take the examination, rightly or wrongly, then the statute which empowers the university to withdraw the candidature of the appellant has worked itself out and the candidate cannot be refused admission subsequently for any infirmity which should have been looked into before giving the candidate permission to appear.....
It will not be out of place to mention here that if the petitioner had been told at the very outset that he was not available for admission in Guru Gobind Singh College, Chandigarh, he could seek his admission in Punjabi University, Patiala or elsewhere where that degree was recognised, but now after having completed the course of B.Sc. Part-II and after appearing in the examination, he should not be told now that he was not eligible for admission. As observed earlier it is a clear case of negligence on the part of the Principal/Staff of the College for not furnishing the correct information to the University."
24. We fully agree with the observations made above and there is nothing substantial which can be gainfully added.
25. The judgments relied upon by the counsel for the Appellant are neither pari materia on facts nor on law in the case in hand. In Letters Patent Appeal, the learned-Judges were considering the vires of Regulation 5A of the Regulations 1986 which are not in dispute here. In Rakesh Kumari's case (AIR 1988 P&H 241), it was conceded by the candidate herself that she was ineligible to the Examination, which is not the situation in the case in hand.
26. The facts and circumstances of the case are squarely covered by a Division Bench judgment of this Court in Civil Writ Petition No. 2307 of 1988 (Gurdiner Pal Singh v. Panjabi University, decided on April 4, 1988), and we agree with the same.
27. In view of the observations made above, we find no force in this appeal. The same is dismissed with no order as to costs.
28. For the reasons recorded in this Letters Patent Appeal, as the facts and circumstances of the case are squarely covered, the Writ Petitions are to be allowed. We order accordingly. The appellant (Respondent in the Writ Petitions) and University-respondent in Civil Writ Petition No. 9328 of 1989 are directed to declare the result of the candidates.
29. Order accordingly.