Anoop Kumar vs State Of H.P. And Others

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Tarlok Singh Chauhan, J

The petitioner is a student of Pharmacy in the Government Polytechnic Institute, Rohru and on account of shortfall of mandatory attendance, has been denied permission to appear in the Second Semester, constraining him to file the instant petition for grant of the following reliefs:

"i) That in view of the above mentioned facts and circumstances mentioned hereinabove; the respondents authority may kindly be directed to allow the petitioner to appear in the examination which is going to be conducted in the last week of this month June for 2nd semester Pharmacy without any for the delay.

ii) That the impugned order letter Annexure P-2 dt. 21.01.2020 issued by the Principal Govt. Polytechnic Institute Rohru, may kindly be set aside and quashed.

iii) That the during of the pendency of the present writ petition the petitioner this Hon'ble Court directed to respondents may kindly be sent the roll no. to appear in examination which is going to be conducting in last week of this Month June, 2020 in 2nd Semester Pharmacy."

The petitioner does not dispute the shortfall in the attendance, but would attribute the same to his illness and additionally invokes the principle of estoppel on the ground that the respondent-College having accepted the fees for the next Semester cannot refuse permission to the petitioner to undertake the 2nd Semester Examination.

We have heard the learned counsel for the parties and have gone through the records of the case.

At the outset, it needs to be noticed that the name of the petitioner was struck-off from the attendance roll about five months prior to filing of this petition on date on account of not attending regular classes continuously for ten days as per the mandate of Rule 17 (General Rule & Regulation).

The explanation offered by petitioner that he was sick and, therefore, could not attend classes is also not very convincing as not only do we have doubts regarding the medical certificate issued in his favour which is undated, but also find that even as per the pleaded case of the petitioner he was involved in a case under ND&PS Act which was registered against him on 14.01.2020.

In such circumstances, therefore, the petitioner has nobody else to blame except himself for the shortfall in his lectures which are mandatory in terms of the recommendations of the 'Lyngdoh Committee' which was set up by the Hon'ble Supreme Court and its recommendations were thereafter accepted by the Hon'ble Supreme Court.

We find from the attendance register placed before us that upto 31.08.2019, the petitioner had attended only 48.8% lectures, upto 30.09.2019 46.2% lectures, upto 31.10.2019 56.9% lectures and thereafter upto 30.11.2019 only 58.7% lectures as against the mandatory requirement of 75% attendance, which clearly goes to show that the petitioner has been a constant defaulter for which no explanation much less a plausible explanation has been offered by the petitioner.

As regards the question of Rs.4,100/- that the petitioner has already deposited, even that cannot create any estoppel in favour of the petitioner as it is the mandatory fee that a student has to deposit twice in a year after each semester.

Learned counsel for the petitioner would then argue that this Court is vested with very wide discretion and in exercise thereof should condone the shortfall of lectures. We do not find any merit in this contention. For, it is more than settled that discretion vested in the Court must be reasonably trusted to be used properly and not perversely.

Discretion vested in the Court cannot be exercised arbitrarily, capriciously or perversely. The discretion vested in the Court has to be exercised in accordance with law and not contrary to law.

In view of the aforesaid discussion and for the reasons stated above, we find no merit in this writ petition and the same is accordingly dismissed, leaving the parties to bear their own costs. Pending application(s), if any, also stand disposed of.