Andhra Pradesh High Court - Amravati
Nishant Khatton vs The State Of Andhra Pradesh, on 4 April, 2024
IN THE HIGH COURT OF ANDHRA
APHC010548072023
PRADESH
[3333]
AT AMARAVATI
(Special Original Jurisdiction)
THURSDAY ,THE FOURTH DAY OF APRIL
TWO THOUSAND AND TWENTY FOUR
PRESENT
THE HONOURABLE SMT JUSTICE V.SUJATHA
WRIT PETITION NO: 28977/2023
Between:
Nishant Khatton and Others ...PETITIONER(S)
AND
The State Of Andhra Pradesh and Others ...RESPONDENT(S)
Counsel for the Petitioner(S):
1. S.V.S.S.SIVA RAM
Counsel for the Respondent(S):
1. GP FOR HIGHER EDUCATION
2. Y RATNA PRABHA (SC FOR RAYALASEEMA UNIVERSITY)
3. Y RATNA PRABHA (SC FOR RAYALASEEMA UNIVERSITY)
The Court made the following:
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ORDER:
This writ petition came to be filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India seeking the following relief:
"...to issue a Writ, Order or Direction more particularly one in nature of Writ of Mandamus declaring the action of the 2nd and 3rd respondents in not permitting the petitioners to complete the Doctorate in Philosophy (PhD) Course purportedly on the grounds of non-payment of course fee/extension fee and/or non-submission of DCMS/Thesis in time as wholly illegal, arbitrary, unjust, contrary to Principles of Natural Justice, besides being violative of Article 14 and 21 of Constitution of India and consequently direct the respondents to permit the petitioners to complete Ph.D Course by condoning the delay for payment fee and by providing one time opportunity to complete their respective Courses and pass such....."
2. All the petitioners herein are part-time research scholars pursuing their respective Ph.D. Courses in the respondent university and are actively engaged in research with 12 to 30 years of unblemished experience in postgraduate and/or undergraduate teaching and/or research at State Level/National level, public and private institutions in their respective fields. The petitioners herein have joined in the respondent university in the academic years 2009 and 2010, with a hope to accomplish their respective Ph.D. Degree's by the Academic years 2015 or 2017 as 3 the minimum period for completion of the course is 4 years and maximum being 6 years. But, the respondent university has not started research process till the academic year 2010-11 and as soon as the research process has started, the respondent university has halted the process from the academic years 2011- 12 to 2014-15, without any prior notice to any of the research scholars and had declared academic holidays to the university.
3. After four years i.e. in the academic year 2015-16,the respondent university has resumed the research process, but, the resumption was not relayed to the research scholars and the respondent university was negligent in conducting DCM's and notifying the same to the research scholars. The case of the petitioners is that in a span of 10 years, the petitioners were afforded only 5 years for research in their respective fields. Due to Covid-19 pandemic prevailing in the month of March, 2019, the UGC issued guidelines in the month of April, 2020 leaving it open to the universities to allow the Ph.D. Scholars for conducting research or not and further recommended extension of six months for those students, whose maximum period for submission of thesis is expired during the pandemic period including pending formalities. Though other universities continued research process through online mode even during the pandemic period, the respondent university halted the entire 4 process on account of some internal research irregularities and remained dysfunctional from March, 2019 to March, 2023. As such, the petitioners were deprived of the opportunities such as submission of thesis in time and payment of requisite fees in time.
4. The further case of the petitioners is that though the respondent university has reinitiated the Ph.D. programme and has conducted viva voce to the candidates who have submitted their thesis in 2019, the respondent authorities have orally informed the petitioners that no further steps would be taken in their respective cases for completion of Ph.D. and for submission of doctoral thesis, on the ground of non-payment of requisite fee and non-submission of doctoral thesis in time. The petitioners further submit that the University Grants Commission has neither prescribed any minimum or maximum time limit within which a student has to complete the course or to submit the thesis after appearing for the examination, nor has laid down any guidelines to determine the minimum period required for submission of thesis after research work, but, it is for the university concerned to frame their own statutes, rules and regulations in this regard. The respondent university, in the present case, without considering the factored conditions that ought to be considered in favour of the petitioners, such as 5 'disrupted academic and research activities, pandemic conditions, complexity of research topic, scarceness of research material, technicalities beyond the control of the petitioners, negligence and mass-miscommunication, delay and laches on the part of the respondents', is not allowing the petitioners to submit doctoral thesis and to attend viva voce, but are threatening the petitioners of cancellation of admission orally. Though all the petitioners are ready and willing to pay all the requisite fee for condonation of delay, if any, and are ready to submit their respective doctoral thesis except the 21st petitioner, in whose case extension of time is required, the respondents are not permitting the petitioners for completing the Ph.D. Course.
5. As stated in the affidavit, the respondent university has issued a circular wherein it is stated that the final spell of pre-talk presentation would be conducted in the third week of October, 2023 and has informed that the research scholars whose research admissions have been ratified in Phase-III, who has paid all the requisite fee and who has completed DCM I&II as eligible for final spell of pre-talk presentation; and the part-time & extramural research programmes will be closed by 30.04.2024. The grievance of the petitioners is that though there were no division of phases made at the time of admission, the respondent had introduced division of phases in 2019 arbitrarily. The further 6 case of the petitioners is that upon re-initiation of the process by the respondent university, all the petitioners herein have approached the university seeking redressal and requested the authorities to permit them to complete the course, but, none of the respondent authorities have responded, though they are aware of the fact that the matter falls purely under the jurisdiction of the university and can extend the same by providing one last opportunity for the petitioner for completion of their respective doctoral thesis on par with the other universities. Aggrieved by the inaction of the respondents in not permitting the petitioners to complete the Ph.D. Course by condoning the delay for payment of fee and by providing one time opportunity to complete their respective courses, the petitioners have filed the present writ petition.
6. The respondent Nos.2 and 3 have filed a counter denying the allegations made by the petitioners and further stated that though the research admissions were made during the academic years 2008-09 and 2009-10, the programme was continued up to June, 2011, the same was in hibernation from July, 2011 to June, 2015 without any academic and administrative activity. It is further stated that after resuming the research program, the University issued circulars through its website from time to time indicating the procedure to be followed, 7 fee to be paid, examinations and reviews to be attended along with the minimum and maximum period for the completion of the program and based on the said circulars updated in the University website only, all the research scholars were admitted along with the petitioners in the research programme and they have completed up to the present level. As such, the allegation of mass miscommunication and major negligence on the part of the University is baseless and far from truth. The University continued research process up to February, 2020 and the same has been stopped after February, 2020 due to some administrative reasons followed by the lockdowns imposed by the Government due to the pandemic and the same has been resumed in April, 2023 and the option for the payment of the research fee, extension fee along with late fee is closed by 30.11.2019. The petitioners have not followed all the required formalities within due time.
7. It is further stated in the counter that basing on the resolutions of the various committees and approvals of the Executive Committee, the university is continuing the research program in the present manner and irrespective of the reasons, the University has to confine to the resolutions of the EC only. From July, 2009, the UGC has been notifying the research guidelines from time to time and suggested various procedures in 8 awarding research degrees to the Universities in the country. As such, the University cannot continue the research program designed more than a decade back; hence, the EC has instructed the University to close the research program after completing the pending formalities/procedures for the research scholars whose research admissions were in live as of now and to complete the process before 30.04.2024. As the admissions of the petitioners are not in live or as they did not complete the required formalities within the stipulated time, the University is unable to accept the request of the petitioners for the continuation of their research.
8. The part-time/extramural research programme of the University is reinitiated with the resolution of the EC meeting and the same has been notified through a circular on 11.04.2023 through University website and is continuing the process. As such, various circulars have been issued from time to time for the smooth closure of the program within the stipulated date i.e. 30.04.2024 as per the resolution of the EC. As the admissions of the petitioners are not in live as per the norms of the University, their requests cannot be considered and prayed to dismiss the writ petition.
9. Heard learned counsel for the petitioners, learned Government Pleader for Higher Education and learned Standing Counsel for Rayalaseema University.
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10. From the above, it is evident that though the petitioners have joined in the respondent university during the academic year 2009 and 2010, the petitioners were afforded only 5 years for research in their respective fields, for one reason or the other. The petitioners were deprived of the opportunities such as submission of thesis and payment of requisite fees in time, as the respondent university has halted the entire process on account of some internal research irregularities and remained dysfunctional from March, 2019 to March, 2023. Nowhere the University Grants Commission has prescribed the minimum or maximum time limit within which a student has to complete the course or to submit the thesis after appearing for the examination, but, it is for the respondent university to frame their own statutes, rules and regulations. This Court is also of the opinion that though the petitioners are willing to pay requisite fee for condonation of delay and without considering the conditions such as disrupted academic and research activities, pandemic conditions, complexity of research topic, scarceness of research material, technicalities beyond the control of the petitioners, negligence and mass-miscommunication, the respondents cannot reject the petitioners admission on the ground that they have failed to pay the requisite research fee in time as directed by the respondents.
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11. It is also evident from the material available on record that basing on the resolutions of the various committees and approvals of the Executive Committee, the University is continuing the research program and is confined to the resolutions of the EC and the EC has instructed the University to close the research program after completing the pending formalities for the research scholars whose research admissions were in live before 30.04.2024. The only ground on which petitioners' case was rejected is that they have not paid the fees as they are not aware in view of the fact that the last date for payment of fees was uploaded only in the website.
12. In view of the fact that the respondent University has passed a resolution and thereafter issued various circulars for closure of the Ph.D. program before 30.04.2024, instead of going into merits of the case, this Court feels it appropriate to dispose of the present writ petition by directing the respondents to consider the case of the petitioners by receiving the payment of the research fee duly condoning the delay as a one time opportunity to the petitioners, within a period of ten (10) days from the date of receipt of a copy of this order and thereafter, the petitioners may be allowed to complete their Ph.D. program in accordance with law.
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13. Accordingly, with the above direction, this writ petition is disposed of. There shall be no order as to costs.
As a sequel, miscellaneous applications pending, if any, shall also stand closed.
_______________________ JUSTICE V.SUJATHA GSS Date:04.04.2024.