SC directs Nagpur bench to rehear plea against 85 NU colleges

SC directs Nagpur bench to rehear plea against 85 NU colleges

The Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court will again have to hear the petition regarding alleged irregularities by Nagpur University officials while allowing students of nearly 85 colleges to appear for the annual exams (2006-07 and 2007-08 sessions) even as they failed to complete the norm of 180 mandatory teaching days in an academic year as per the Maharashtra Universities Act, 1994.


Hearing a special leave petition (SLP) filed by Kohchade scam convict Sunil Mishra, the Supreme Court on Monday directed the Nagpur bench to hear and decide his plea at the earliest. A division bench of the apex court comprising justices RV Raveendran and AK Patnaik also repealed a fine of Rs 10,000 levied on him by the Nagpur bench on November 25 last year for not revealing facts.


During the last hearing, the apex court had issued a notice to chancellor-cum-governor K Sankaranarayanan asking him as to why the matter should not be remanded for decision on merit. Prashant Bhushan, Sumeet Sharma and Bhanoo Sood were counsels for the petitioner.


The petitioner contended that as per section 82 (1) of the MU Act, the management seeking permission to open a new college shall apply to the university's registrar before the last day of October of any year, if they want to start it from the new academic year in July. They also had to seek permission from the state government before applying for an affiliation from the university as prescribed in section 83. Moreover, section 84 (6) specifically states that no student shall be admitted by the college unless the first time affiliation is granted by the university.


The 85 colleges, including engineering, admitted students after getting affiliation from NU as late as January 2007. They applied for permission for their students to appear in the summer examinations that started in March 2007. They also submitted exam forms of students. However, the controller of examination (CoE) refused to accept them citing non-compliance of the mandatory 180 days required to be completed in an academic year.


The college managements led by many high-profile politicians approached former vice chancellor SN Pathan and exerted pressure after which he convened a meeting of the board of examinations (BoE) and passed a resolution in March 2007 granting them relief.


On July 23, 2007, the petitioner filed a police complaint claiming that the NU violated provisions of law and granted bogus degrees to students. After getting no response, Mishra approached the chancellor's office in Mumbai with his pleas. He claimed that many top-rung engineering colleges have been involved in the said scam and CBI had even conducted raids on a couple of them.


After failing to get any response, he finally moved the HC praying action against the colleges.