Laws related to declaration of result, revaluation & verification of answer paper & court judgments- The delay in declaration of results and defective moderation of answer paper is most common experience to the lacs of student of state of Maharashtra belonging to many professional & non professional courses especially to the engineering and law students.
Whether it is Mumbai University or university having repute of ‘Oxford of The East’ i.e. Savitribai Phule Pune University, the problems of delay in the declaration of the results & defective moderation of the answer paper over the years are unending. These universities in spite of extremely poor services, charge exorbitant charges for the examination as well as revaluation and verification of the answer papers.
Unfortunately many students even though wrongly but commit suicide over the issue of result of their examination. The ignorance of the law as well as of correct strategy to fight against such malpractices of the universities have led to the inability of the students to fight against such illegalities over the years in spite of strong desire to do so which has resulted into their tremendous academic and financial loss.
Background-
I had personally supported the protest movement of the thousands of the engineering students against the delay in declaration of results and defective moderation of answer paper led by the Engineering Students Council & Maharashtra Yuva Shakti Pratishthan in the year 2014. The students were demanding the ‘Carry On’ for the next academic year which was turned down by the then University of Pune for want of any direct statutory provision.
However finally on behalf of the organization i had provided the students many draft notices & miscellaneous applications for legal action as well as for approaching consumer forums. The students submitted all these drafts to the university administration. I also advised the students to put forward the demand of revaluation , even after their revaluation was done previously. The demand of re-revaluation of the answer paper of the students was accepted ultimately by the university administration.
As above mentioned, not only the demands of the students were accepted but huge defective revaluation system of the university administration was exposed post results were announced. The students were declared to have passed the examination which were earlier declared as failed. Some students got cleared 4 subject in one stroke which had declared them failed and few students got the increase of the marks from 25 to 43 as follows- (It is pertinent to note that these results were declared not only after the normal examination but after the revaluation process also!)
The examples above mentioned make it clear that instead of making the bright future of our nation, the universities are deriving immense pleasure in spoiling the youth of our nation which included the most important streams like engineering & law also. In the protest above mentioned, i came to know that in spite of the strong unity, the students fail to fight against such unjust system of delay in declaration of results and defective moderation of answer paper by the universities for lack of legal and strategic knowledge. Hence i humbly believe that this article should help students to fight such injustice confidently once they are equipped with legal and strategic knowledge as follows.
As above referred, the students need to tackle such issues with 2 extremely important aspect-
1) Legal Aspect,
2) Strategic Aspect.
I believe if strategy given below is applied diligently by the students, they can put permanent end such malpractices of the universities within few months and may make a revolutionary change in examination section of the universities.
1) Legal Aspect-
A.Statutory Provision of The State Givernment (Maharashtra)-
The State of Maharashtra has repealed the Maharashtra Universities Act, 1994 & has enacted the Maharashtra Public Universities Act, 2016. The Section 89 of the Maharashtra Universities Act, 1994 deals with the declaration of the result as follows-
Thus this provision makes it clear that if the university administration fails to declare the results of the students within 45 days, the Director, Board of Examinations and Evaluation shall prepare a detailed report incorporating the reasons for such delay submit the same through Vice-Chancellor to Chancellor and to the State Government, and the direction of the Chancellor in this regard shall be final and binding. I believe that this provision is also applicable for the declaration of the result of the revaluation & verification process also.
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B.Judgement Given by The Bombay High Court-
Many of the readers might be aware of the extreme indifference & malpractice committed by the Mumbai University in the year 2017 in declaration of the result of many courses. Ultimately a law student had filed the Writ Petition through his lawyer (Writ Petition No.2320 (Stamp) of 2017, copy of the court orders are given below) which resulted successfully into declaration of the result of the 444 courses out of 477 courses conducted by the Mumbai University.
While the filing of the writ petition above mentioned resulted into the big success in declaration of the results in few weeks, the Bombay High Court refused the demands of the students of appointment of High Inquiry Commission against university & also grant of monetary compensation.
The Bombay High Court mentioned in its judgement that as the state government had filed the affidavit before it that the Governor & the Chief Minister of the State of Maharashtra had taken the serious cognizance of the matter, the demand of the High Inquiry Commission cannot be accepted.
Also the Bombay High court mentioned that for monetary compensation students need to take recourse to the ordinary legal remedies (Civil Suit, Consumer Complaints etc.) and that its improper to grant the monetary compensation while exercising its extra ordinary Writ Jurisdiction.
The important 2 orders of the Bombay High Court in above mentioned matter (Writ Petition No.2320 (Stamp) of 2017 are given as follows-
Writ Petition No. 2320 (Stamp) of 2017-Order 1.Pdf
Writ Petition No. 2320 (Stamp) of 2017 Final Order.Pdf
2) Strategic Aspect-
I feel that students should adopt the following strategy while dealing with the malpractices of the delay in declaration of results and defective moderation of answer paper by the universities as follows-
A) If the results are not declared within the 45 days, students should file the applications and complaint notices to the Vice Chancellor of the university and should demand to immediately direct the Director, Board of Examinations and Evaluation to immediately submit a detailed report incorporating the reasons for such delay as declared U/S.89 Of the Maharashtra Public Universities Act, 2016 & the copy of such complaint notices must be forwarded to the Governor & Chief Minister of the state & the Education Minister also.
B) Strategy of Protest-
i) Those students who are willing to solve this issue with public protest, should demand the Vice Chancellor of the university to direct the moderators to check the answer papers in time bounden manner and that failure to comply with the deadline should result into disciplinary as well as criminal action against such errant moderators,
ii) If the issue is not resolved at the level of Vice-Chancellor of the university, the students should immediately make correspondence with the offices of the Governor, Chief Minister & the Education Minister and if no immediate action is taken by these higher authorities also, they should launch the decisive protest at their offices or at place advised by the police administration.
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C) Judicial Approach-
For those students who cannot launch or participate in protests, should file Writ Petition through their lawyers & can get the justice without launching any protest on streets. As above mentioned, even the filing of writ petition by single student can give relief to other lacs of students of the university.
D) Monetary Compensation-
As above mentioned, the Bombay High Court itself has clarified that for the monetary compensation the students should take recourse to ordinary legal proceedings (filing civil suit, consumer complaints etc.). I personally believe that filing consumer complaints can teach permanent lessons to such errant universities.
In brief, the students can fight against the malpractices of the university of delay in declaration of results and defective moderation of answer paper either through public protest or judicial way also. I believe if students take appropriate steps timely as above mentioned, a revolutionary result can be derived and ultimately even improve our educational system and may put them rank higher even globally, Jaihind!
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-Adv.Siddharthshankar Sharma
Founder President-Bharatiya Krantikari Sangathan
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