K.C.Agarwal, J. - (1.) Pursuant to an advertisement for a permanent post of Professor and Director of K. M. Institute of Hindi and Linguistics, Agra University. Agra applications ware filed by a number of persons for appointment on the said post. Amongst others, the petitioner Dr. K C. Agarwal, and respondent no.4. Dr. V. N. Misra also applied. These persons were interviewed along with others. The Selection Committee held its meeting on the 5th January. 1977 recommended the names of the following three persons to the University for appointment. The names recommended were in the following order of preference:- 1. Dr. V. N. Misra 2. Dr. Prem Swarup Gupta 3. Dr. Amar Bahadur Singh. The appointment order was thereafter issued to Dr. V. N. Misra who accepted the appointment and joined his duties in September, 1977. In March 1979 the petitioner made a representation to the Chancellor under Section 68 of the U.P. State Universities Act, 1973 challenging the appointment of Dr. V. N. Misra on the post of the Professor-cum-Director of the Institute. The ground mainly taken was that Dr. V.N. Misra did not possess the requisite qualifications and hence could not be appointed on the said post. Since there was a delay in filing the representation, an explanation was given in paragraph 18 of the representation to the Chancellor. The Explanation given was as under:- "That the facts about Dr. V. N. Misras academic attainments and other particulars have come to light recently as a lot of time was taken in the verifications of the facts from places where he was previously employed."
(2.) Under Section 68 of the U.P. State Universities Act reference is required to be made within 90 days. The Chancellor has also been empowered to condone the delay if the person making the reference satisfies the Chancellor that there were exceptional circumstances in existence for condonation of the delay. By the order dated October 1, 1979, the Chancellor rejected the reference. He held that there were no exceptional circumstances to condone the delay Aggrieved, the petitioner has filed the present writ petition.
(3.) After hearing counsel for the petitioner, we are satisfied that the impugned order of the Chancellor does not suffer from any mistake apparent on the face of the record requiring interference under Article 226 of the Constitution. To condone the delay or not lies within the discretion of the Chancellor. The Chancellor fund that the explanation given was not satisfactory. Since we are unable to say that the exercise of discretion was arbitrary or capricious, we cannot hold that the order of the Chancellor is illegal. the appointment of Dr. V.N. Misra was made in 1977. The reference was made to the Chancellor in March, 1979. The ground given in the reference that since he did not know about the qualifications of Dr. V N. Misra, he did not file the reference earlier is a lame excuse and was rightly disbelieved.;