Judgement

GAJENDRAGADKAR, J. : This appeal by special leave arises out of a Writ Petition filed by the respondent Bagleshware Prasad against the Board of High School and Intermediate Education, U. P. Allahabad, and its Secretary, appellants 1 and 2 and another. By his petition, the respondent challenged the validity of the order passed by appellant No. 1 on December 5, 1960, cancelling the respondent s result at the High School Examination held in 1960. It appears that the respondent appeared for the said examination from the Nehru Intermediate College Centre, Bindki. He was declared to have passed the said examination in the II Division with distinction in Art. Thereafter, he joined Intermediate first year class in the Kulbaskar Ashram Agriculture College at Allahabad. On 3rd September, 1960 he received a letter from the Principal, Adarsh Higher Secondary School, Kora Jahanabad, from where he had appeared for the High School Examination, calling upon him to appear before a Sub-Committee to answer the charge of having used unfair means in English, Mathematics and Hindi papers. Accordingly, he appeared before the said Sub-Committee. A charge was given to him and his explanation was obtained on the said charge. This charge was based on the fact that in Hindi 3rd papers set at the said examination, the respondent had given wrong answers to Question No. 4 in precisely the same form in which the said answers had been given by a candidate whose Roll No. was 94733. The respondent s Roll Number was 94734. The respondent was shown the identical wrong answers to the said Question which were found in the two papers, and he was asked to explain about the said identity of the wrong answers. He admitted that the wrong answers appeared to be identical, but he denied that he had used any unfair means. The Sub-Committee however, was not satisfied with the explanation and reported that both the respondent and the candidate whose Roll No. was 94733 had used unfair means. As a result of the report made by the Sub-Committee, the first appellant passed an order cancelling the results of both the candidates. Both the said candidates disputed the validity of the said order in the Allahabad High Court. The petition filed by the candidate whose Roll number was 94733 was dismissed, but that of the respondent was allowed, and the impugned order passed by appellant No. 1 cancelling the result of the respondent in the high School examination for 1960, has been set aside. It is against this order that the appellants have come to this Court by special leave.

2. From the petition filed by the respondent in the High Court (W. P. No. 3469 of 1960) it appears that he challenged the validity of the impugned order on several grounds. The principal contentions raised by the petitioner against the competence and the authority of appellant No. 1 and against the regularity and fairness of the enquiry held, arose for decision before the High Court in the companion W. P. No. 3196 of 1960 also. The High Court rejected the said contentions of law in that W. P. and for the reasons recorded in the judgement in that petition, the said contentions were rejected even in the present petition. Thus, the challenge to the validity of the order made on points of law was not sustained.

3. The High Court then proceeded to examine the narrow ground of attack against the validity of the order which was made on the basis that the impugned order was not supported by any evidence at all. It appears from the judgment of the High Court that the High Court was inclined to accept this argument and it has set aside the order on the ground that it is not supported by any evidence. The correctness of this finding is seriously disputed before us by the learned Advocate-General who appears for the appellants.

4. It is common ground that the proceedings taken against the respondent in respect of the unfair means alleged to have been adopted by him at the examination, are in the nature of quasi-judicial