Telangana High Court Dismisses Plea For Installation Of Aadhar-Linked Biometric Attendance System For Students Of Mahatma Gandhi Law College

The Telangana High Court had dismissed an appeal, in which, directions were sought on the Mahatma Gandhi Law College, Hyderabad for installing a system for recording the biometric attendance of the students based on their Aadhar cards.

The Division Bench of Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice Anil Kumar Jukanti upheld the finding of the single bench, which held that the petitioner failed to convince the Court of any locus and granted liberty to the petitioner to approach the Court by way of a Public Interest Litigation.

The Bench has relied on Manu Subrat Jain & Ors v. State of Haryana and Ors to hold that a writ of Mandamus can only be sought when there is an infringement of a legal right that is judicially enforceable and legally protected.

“The appellant has not been able to demonstrate any legal right, much less any judicially enforceable right” the Division Bench concluded.

The petitioner contended that he was a practising advocate, who claimed to have information that the Mahatma Gandhi College of Law had allegedly been allowing public servants & government officials, such as an inspector of police (who was arrayed as a respondent), admission into the LLB regular courses, despite them being unable to attend classes due to their official duties.

It was further contended that to facilitate such admissions, the college had been submitting false attendance reports to Osmania University (the parent University to the College) to make it seem as if such government officials had been attending class, without having been present. The petitioner stated that despite biometric devices installed in colleges to record attendance, the colleges have been reluctant to implement them.

The petitioner brought to the court's notice that the Registrar of the High Court had disallowed employees of the High Court from pursuing LLB regular courses due to the clash between the job timing and law classes.

The petitioner contended that he had filed an RTI seeking information regarding the government employees enrolled in the college and the implementation of the biometric system for attendance, however, the applications were rejected. The petitioner also approached the Bar Counsil of Telangana seeking information regarding the number of biometric devices installed in law colleges across the State, however, this request was rejected by assigning the reason that, the Bar Counsil of India had authority over such matters.

The petitioner contended that the respondent had been given admission into the college illegally and that the implementation of the biometric system would reduce the scope for fraud, as was being done presently.

The Court after hearing the submissions made by the counsel held that no statutory right had been infringed for which a legal remedy could be prescribed and dismissed the appeal.

Interestingly, a similar petition has been filed before a single-judge bench contending that one Chuchithra Ravi, a full-time employee of the S & P Global Company, had been issued a hall ticket by the Andhra Mahila Sabha Law College, where she was pursuing her LLB regular course despite it being impossible for her to attend classes due to her work hours.

Standing Counsel for the Bar Council of Telangana, advocate Mohiuddin has informed the Court regarding the dismissal order passed by the Division Bench, and the matter is posted for counters on January 2^nd, 2024.

Disposed matter: W.A. 1148 of 2023

Counsel for the appellant: B. Subhash

Counsel for respondents: C. Vani Reddy, V. Ramesh Babu, Aadesh Varma, G.M. Mohiuddin, Ch. Jagannatha Rao, Mohd. Anwar Ali

Pending matter: W.P 27317 of 2023

Counsel for petitioner: Bonala Saramma

Counsel for respondents: Aadesh Verma, MP Kashyap, Ch.Jaganatha Rao, .G.Venkatesh, G.M Mohiuddin.

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