Andhra Pradesh High Court - Amravati
Muchakurthi Niranjan, vs The State Of Andhra Pradesh, on 28 August, 2019
THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE D.V.S.S. SOMAYAJULU
WRIT PETITION NO.11669 OF 2019
ORDER:
This Writ Petition, under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, is filed for the following relief:
"... to issue a writ, order or direction, more particularly one in the nature of Writ of Mandamus, to declare the inaction of the 2nd respondent in not taking any action on the Representation submitted by the 1st petitioner on 31.05.2019 and by the 2nd petitioner on 31.05.2019 and 19.06.2019 requesting the 2nd respondent to extend timeline for submitting Ph.D thesis by 6 (six) months from 31.05.2019, due to the fact of uncertainty in the Ph.D Admissions due to court cases till 2017, change of Research guide and topic by the petitioners and change of rules by 04.04.2019 notice and the Seminar Results conducted on 08.05.2019, 15.05.2019 were declared at much delayed stage on 27.05.2019, as illegal, arbitrary, unconstitutional and violation of Principles of Natural Justice, Art.14, Art.19(1)(g), Art.21 of Constitution of India and consequently direct the 2nd respondent to take action on the Representations submitted by the petitioners within two weeks and permit the petitioners to submit the Ph.D thesis to the 2nd respondent within six months....."
Heard, Sri Thandava Yogesh, learned counsel for the petitioners; learned Government Pleader for Higher Education appearing for 1st respondent and Sri B. Parameswara Rao, learned Standing Counsel appearing for 2nd respondent.
The relief is claimed in this writ petition is against 2nd respondent only.
The petitioners before this Court are Ph.D Scholars in the 2nd respondent-University. They have joined in the University for completing their Ph.D programme in the Academic year 2009. Since then they have been pursuing their programme.
The case of the petitioners is that on 04.04.2019 according to the petitioners, a notice was posted on the University website to 2 submit the Synopsis of the research by 04.04.2019. Accordingly, the petitioners have stopped all their research work and prepared and submitted their synopsis. Thereafter, seminars were also held for these scholars. Results were declared in May 2019 and approximately 100 students per subject were listed as "Not Recommended to Ph.D" on the website. Results were declared on 27.05.2019 and the time to prepare and submit the Thesis was fixed as 31.05.2019. The petitioners are questioning this action and are seeking extension of time. Learned counsel submits that a Ph.D. Thesis cannot be prepared and submitted in a gap of four days. Therefore, he submits that the representations submitted by the petitioners on 31.05.2019 and 19.06.2019 by which they sought six months time should be granted in order to enable them to prepare and submit their Ph.D Thesis.
Learned Standing Counsel for respondent No.2 does not really object to the prayer and states that the 2nd respondent-University should be given liberty to examine the representation and pass orders thereon.
Considering the difficulty expressed by the learned counsel for the petitioners and in view of the fact that the representations given by the petitioners are still pending and no decision has been taken, this Court is of the opinion that the 2nd respondent is directed to consider the representations submitted by the petitioners on 31.05.2019 and 19.06.2019 seeking six months time for submission of the final Ph.D. Thesis and to pass appropriate orders thereon, without in any way being influenced by the fact that the order has been passed by this Court. The entire exercise should be completed within three weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of this Order. 3
With these observations, this writ petition is disposed of. No order as to costs.
As a sequel, pending miscellaneous petitions, if any, shall stand closed.
____________________________ D.V.S.S. SOMAJAYULU, J Date: 28.08.2019 PGR