“Students Cannot Be Put To Injury”: Madras High Court Directs Special Exams For Students Admitted In College Without Recognition

Considering the plight of the students, the bench of Justice SS Sundar and Justice Bharatha Chakravarthy directed the university to conduct the examinations as soon as possible within a period of three months and to declare the results within a further period of two months. The court also directed the college to bear the expenses.

“Considering the facts that the students are not at fault and the withdrawal of recognition was later set aside and later on remand continuation of recognition was directed by the NCTE, this Court finds that the students cannot be put to injury. Therefore, the University is directed to conduct a Special Examination for the students who were admitted for the academic year 2021-22 in respect of all the four semesters. The appellant shall bear the entire costs of such examinations,” the bench said.

The court thus set aside an order of the single judge imposing cost of five lakh on the college saying that the college should suffer the consequences of its actions. The single judge had also left it open to the students to litigate against the college by claiming damages and said that the college was playing sympathy on the court in the name of the 100 students studying there, while being in blatant violation of the Rules regarding affiliation of the University.

On appeal, the division bench was informed that the College had obtained recognition for conducting B.Ed. degree course of one year duration with an annual intake of 100 students in 2006. Thereafter, on December 3, 2019 a show cause notice was issued under Section 17 of the National Council for Teacher Education Act and the application for continuation of provisional affiliation for the academic year 2021-22 was not processed. It was also informed that by an order dated 16.03.2021, the recognition granted to appellant was withdrawn.

The college informed the court that while an appeal against the order was pending, the College admitted students for the academic years 2021-22 and 2022-23 and later on September 2, 2022, the NCTE passed an order continuing the college’s recognition after the matter was remitted back to it by the High Court during appeal. Following this, affiliation was also granted by the University.

The court noted that since the appeal filed by the College against withdrawing recognition was allowed, the withdrawal was not in force. Further, considering that the NCTE had permitted the continuation of recognition and noting that the university had also granted affiliation, the division bench did not agree with the opinion of the single judge holding that the students could not write examinations.

The court also considered University’s submission that all the 100 students admitted to the two year course for the academic year 2021-22 were eligible and that there was no deficiency. Thus, in light of the fact that there was no order withdrawing recognition for 2021-22, the court observed that all the students were eligible to write the examinations and ordered accordingly.

Counsel for Appellant: Mr.S.Sivasubramanian E.Somasundaram

Counsel for Respondent: Mr.V.R.Venkatesan, Mr.S.Sukumar

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 280

Case Title: Arulmigu Kalasalingam College of Education v The Appeal Committee

Case No: W.A.(MD) No.497 of 2023