Punjab-Haryana High Court
Anchal And Another vs National Institute Of Technology on 25 July, 2012
Author: Ranjit Singh
Bench: Ranjit Singh
IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH
Civil Writ Petition No. 5900 of 2012
Date of decision : 25.07.2012
Anchal and another .....Petitioners
VERSUS
National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra and others
....Respondents
CORAM:- HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE RANJIT SINGH
1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgement?
2. To be referred to the Reporters or not?
3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest?
Present: Mr. Tribhuvan Dahiya, Advocate
for the petitioners.
Mr. A. S. Virk, Advocate
for the respondents.
****
RANJIT SINGH, J.
The respondent-department is offering courses of Masters in Computer Applications and Ph.D programme. As per the petitioner, the department has a regular faculty. The inclusion of Ph.D programme in the department of Computer Applications was approved by the Senate on 23.03.2010. Respondent No. 2/institution invited applications for Ph.D programme in the year 2011-2012. The petitioners were also the applicants. They submitted their application in May 2011.
As per the Regulation, the Department Research Committee (DRC) is to be constituted under the Chairmanship of Head of the Department for recommending candidates for appointment to Ph.D programme. DRC will also check the eligibility of Civil Writ Petition No. 5900 of 2012 -2- candidates and shortlist the candidates for the admission test/interview to be conducted by DRC. The petitioners alongwith 24 other candidates were interviewed. The petitioners claim to have been selected for admission to Ph.D programme and state that on the basis of their performance, the DRC selected them for admission in the Ph.D programme. DRC also approved their areas of research for the Ph.D and the supervisors and co-supervisors, as is recorded in the meeting note. The DRC recommended for registration of the petitioners as Ph.D scholars.
Respondent No. 3 requested the department to review the Ph.D admission with reference to Regulation 7.2 of the Ph.D Regulations. Respondent No. 4/Department responded by stating that department was created with due approval of the Senate and the admission to Ph.D was made as per rules. The petitioners have, accordingly, approached this Court when they are not being registered as Ph.D students.
The respondents have filed reply. The stand as reflected in the reply is that the department is not having a regular faculty and the permission to register the candidates cannot be allowed. In this regard, reference is made to Regulation 7.2 of Ph.D Regulations, which is as under:-
" Any regular full-time faculty member of the concerned Dept. of the NITK holding a Doctorate degree and minimum two research papers published in the referred journals, can be appointed a supervisor." Civil Writ Petition No. 5900 of 2012 -3- The counsel for the petitioners has, however, drawn my attention to Annexure P-4 to say that there are already Supervisors and such objection that there is no regular faculty cannot be, there fore, raised in respect of the case of the petitioners alone.
Counsel for the respondent has explained this by stating that earlier this was being allowed but now the University has decided to apply the provisions of Regulation 7.2. It is also pointed out that the action is in hand to appoint regular faculty and the request of the petitioners can then be considered.
The plea by the counsel for the petitioners that need of Supervisor would be after one year, as per the Regulation 9 may be correct but the action being on the basis of legal provisions would not require any interference. The justification in this regard is relevant and is based on provisions contained in the regulation. It would not be appropriate to interfere in exercise of writ jurisdiction. I would, therefore, decline the prayer of the petitioners for being regularized for PhD.
Dismissed.
July 25, 2012 ( RANJIT SINGH ) rts JUDGE