HC dismisses HP university’s appeal challenging order to pay Rs 40k to student for delay in issuing marksheet

The division bench of Acting Chief Justice Ravi Malimath and Justice Jyotsna Rewa Dua, while dismissing the appeal, upheld the decision of the single judge and observed that a larger amount of compensation was liable to be imposed in this matter.

THE HIMACHAL Pradesh High Court has dismissed an appeal filed by the Himachal Pradesh University challenging an order to pay Rs 40,000 compensation to an economics student who had alleged irreparable loss to his career due to delay in issuance of his consolidated M.A. marksheet.

The division bench of Acting Chief Justice Ravi Malimath and Justice Jyotsna Rewa Dua, while dismissing the appeal, upheld the decision of the single judge and observed that a larger amount of compensation was liable to be imposed in this matter.

Naveen Kumar had filed a writ petition alleging that the university was not issuing his consolidated marksheet for M.A. Economics despite the fact that he had passed all the papers in 2005. He alleged that the university had shown him as ‘absent’ in one of the courses, whereas he had appeared in that course. He made a representation to the university stating that he was not absent in any of the papers and also visited the authorities time and again to get his result settled.

Later on, university officials verified from the attendance sheet that he was present for both the papers. He was assured that the matter shall be settled very soon, but after passing all the papers in 2005, when he applied for the consolidated marksheet, his application was again rejected. He again visited the university many times to get the matter settled after verifying his attendance from record, but the officials refused to do so, stating that they have no time to look for old records.

The petitioner had alleged that in the whole process, he spent thousands of rupees and was subjected to the ill behaviour of university officials. He alleged that those were his career defining years, but due to this reason, in many of the interviews he was deprived of getting the weight-age on account of P.G. degree and could not apply or appear in many examinations.

He had prayed that the university may be directed to issue his consolidated marksheet and pay him a compensation of Rs 5 lakh for causing suffering and irreparable loss.

During the hearing, H P University admitted that the petitioner had appeared in Course III but scored 19 marks in it.

The single bench had allowed the petition, directing H P University to grant at least three chances to the petitioner to pass the course and pay a compensation of Rs 40,000 to the petitioner.

The university filed an appeal against the orders of the single judge.

Dismissing the appeal, the court observed that the single judge “has been very magnanimous in ordering such a meagre amount against the appellants-university”. The court also observed that for the error committed, a larger amount of compensation was liable to be imposed. The court observed that it finds no ground to interfere with the impugned order passed by the single judge and dismissed the appeal.

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