Panjab University created unfortunate anomalous situation: HC

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 14

Expressing anguish over “unfortunate anomalous situation” created by Panjab University in giving weightage for admissions, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today recommend a relook into the entire issue from the next session.

The matter

The issue before the Bench was whether the PU was correct in publishing the notice, dated November 28, 2020, for withdrawing the resolution, dated September 2, 2020, for granting four marks weightage to students with the “legal studies” subject in Class XII exams for admission to the BA-LLB (Honours) five-year integrated course.

“The dissatisfaction that the students have regarding the admission process every academic year has to be ironed out as it is not expected of the students, be it future lawyers, to waste their precious formative years in the Courts seeking relief,” the Bench of Justice Jaswant Singh and Justice Sant Parkash asserted.

The Bench was hearing a bunch of petitions filed against the university and other respondents by Smriti and other petitioners through senior counsel SK Garg Narwana, Vishal Garg Narwana, Puneet Gupta, Sandeep Moudgil, Sandeep Suri and Pardhuman Garg. The PU was represented by Akshay Kumar Goel.

The Bench asserted that weightage was being granted to one stream of students, but was unavailable to other streams for similar courses published under the same prospectus.

The issue before the Bench was whether the PU was correct in publishing notice dated November 28, 2020, for withdrawing resolution dated September 2, 2020, for granting four-mark weightage to students with “legal studies” subject in Class XII exams for admission to BA-LLB (Honours) five-year integrated course.

The Bench added the hopes and aspirations of the students, who applied under the prospectus could not be scuttled by introducing a corrigendum or resolution dated September 2, 2020, on granting weightage. A change in the conditions of the prospectus could be conceived of and allowed if such power was specifically reserved while making the prospectus public.

“The resolution dated September 2, 2020, having a drastic effect, according to us, was nothing but a bona fide mistake and therefore, it was rightly withdrawn by the PU after rejection by the Vice-Chancellor,” the Bench added.

“The anomaly is amplified now even more, in view of the fact that students are to be granted admission on the basis of their marks in Class XII examination on account of scrapping of the written entrance exam,” the Bench added.

Before parting with the case, the Bench added it strongly felt there was a larger issue involved regarding discrimination amongst similar courses offered by the PU. The Bench, however, had no option but not to interfere in the petitions and address the larger issue of the faulty university Calendar.