UDAY KUMAR SINHA Vs. STATE BOARD OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner has applied under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India for quashing an order, dated the 10th September, 1970, passed by the State Board of Technical Education, Bihar, Patna, under the Department of Industries and Technical Education. A copy of the order has been given as Annexure 7. By this order, the Board decided that the petitioner had been found guilty of using mal-practices during the 1969 Annual examination of Diploma of Engineering, for getting undue advantage at the said examination and he was declared to have failed at the 1969 Annual examination and all other examinations at which he was allowed to appear provisionally thereafter. THE petitioner was debarred from appearing at any examination conducted by the Board prior to the Annual examination of the year 1972, THE relevant facts are as follows. THE petitioner was given a notice, dated the 24th July, 1969 stating that during the course of the examinations being held at the Navin Rajkiye Polytechnic, Patna, he had, on the 17th May, 1969, taken part in the burning of a scooter of an Assistant Professor and he had also taken part in other violent activities. A copy of this notice has been given as Annexure 2. THE petitioner had submitted an explanation, dated the 28th July, 1969, a copy of which has been given as Annexure 3. He had denied having taken part in any occurrence on the 17th May, 1969 and according to him, he was not present at all in Patna on that day. It appears from the record that a first information report under Section 435 of the Penal Code had been lodged with the police naming the petitioner as one of the accused persons and the informant was the owner of the scooter. namely, Sri Madan Gopal. So far as this part of the case is concerned, it now appears that the criminal case has ended in acquittal by judgment passed by the trial Court on the 22nd April, 1971. Sri Madan Gopal was declared hostile in that case by the prosecution, as he failed to name and identify the accused persons. THErefore, the stand taken by the Board in its counter-affidavit, where a statement made by Sri Madan Gopal on the 5th December, 1969, has been appended as Annexure B (2), is of no avail at present. Whatever may have been the statement which Sri Madan Gopal (Manchanda) may have made earlier, he has now retracted from such statements, as indicated on the record of the criminal case. According to the learned Counsel for the petitioner, the Board had no power to pass the order incorporated in Annexure 7, even on the allegations which had been made earlier against the petitioner. In this connection, the stand taken by the Board in the counter-affidavit may now be stated. It is mentioned therein that the Examination Board had found that the matter with which the petitioner was connected was not of employing unfair means in the examination itself, but it had related to the use of "general mal-practice for getting undue advantage at the Board Examination", But, even on that footing it was admitted in the counter-affidavit that the examination Board had referred the ma_tter to the State Board of Technical Education, which was the proper authority for dealing with the matter. THE power of the State Board is to be found in Annexure C (sic) is resolution of the Government of Bihar in the Department of Industries and Mines and according to Annexure C, the Board could take disciplinary action for malpractices in the examinations conducted by the Board. It is more or less admitted that the event for which the petitioner has been punished was not any malpractice in any examination. In the counter-affidavit the matter has been stated thus: