IMPORTANT POINT
When Rules do not permit transfer from one campus to another under any circumstances, Court should not direct so.

JUDGMENT :

Dipak Misra, J.

The appellant No.1 appeared in All India Common Entrance Test, 2015 conducted by the respondent No.1, i.e., English and Foreign Languages Universities, Hyderabad which runs three satellite and constituent campuses at Hyderabad, Lucknow and Shillong, for selecting candidates in the B.A. (Hons.) in English. In the entrance examination, the appellant No.1 secured 68 marks and was placed at serial no.101 in the merit list as far as the Hyderabad Campus is concerned and at serial no.3 in the merit list published for admission in Lucknow campus. It is beyond dispute that the appellant no.1 belongs to general category and out of total 40 seats in the Hyderabad Campus, 26 seats are meant for the general category. In view of the marks secured, the appellant being ineligible to get the admission in the Hyderabad Campus, was compelled to join at Lucknow Campus.

2. While she was prosecuting her studies at the Lucknow Campus, certain seats fell vacant at Hyderabad Campus and that induced her to submit a representation to the 1st respondent on 3.8.2015 seeking transfer from Lucknow Campus to Hyderabad Campus. The authorities of the University maintained sphinx like silence and that constrained her to reiterate her representations seeking the same relief but all representation which was nothing but a sisyphean endevour. The non-response impelled her to knock at the doors of the writ court and for the said purpose she, through her father, sought legal aid from the Legal Services Authority for appointment of a counsel to file the writ petition. Apart from stressing on the inaction of the 1st respondent, it was specifically asserted that one Tirna Chandra was extended the benefit of admission though she had not applied and in any case, not eligible and, therefore, her admission was vitiated and the appellant deserved to be transferred to Hyderabad Campus.

3. As the facts have been unfolded, the learned Single Judge, taking note of the specific allegation, the plight pronouncedly stated by the appellant through her father (as she was a minor and represented by her father in the writ petition), came to hold that there was no specific material placed before the Court as regards the admission of Tirna Chandra in Hyderabad Campus and hence, it was not possible to express any opinion and come to a definite conclusion whether any irregularity had been committed while extending the benefit of admission to said Tirna Chandra; that the 'Important Instructions' notified by the University for the online admissions 2015-2016 though laid the postulate that no transfer was permissible, yet it was only restricted to a candidate who had chosen one campus at the time of admission but the said prohibition would not apply when he/she seeks transfer to another campus after taking admission; that in the obtaining factual matrix, Instruction No.5, which is a part of 'Important Instructions' was not applicable to the case of the writ petitioner; that the syllabi of the two campuses are same and there is no change of the University; and that as the appellant had been admitted to second year and eight vacancies at Hyderabad Campus having arisen, the transfer from one campus to another was permissible as that would not violate the norms of student-teacher ratio. Being of this view, the writ Court allowed the writ petition directing the respondent-University to transfer the petitioner therein from Lucknow Campus to Hyderabad Campus within a period of two weeks.

4. The University, being dissatisfied with the directions issued by the Writ Court, preferred Writ Appeal No. 723 of 2016. The Division Bench of the High Court took note of the fact that the University had prepared separate merit lists for each of the campus and hence, admission to Hyderabad Campus could only have been made on the basis of the merit list drawn as regards the said campus and permitting a student lower in rank to be transferred from the Lucknow Campus to Hyderabad Campus that to