The principles of natural justice require that a person should be given an opportunity to be heard before any adverse decision is taken against him.

GHULAM MOHAMMED, J.

( 1 ) THE petitioner herein is a student of Science group studying in Second Year Intermediate in Nalanda Junior College, Hyderabad. The father of the petitioner initially sworn an affidavit in support of the writ petition filed for a writ of mandamus challenging the action of the respondents debarring him from writing intermediate examinations by order dated 4-11-1997 as illegal arbitrary and violative of natural justice. Subsequently, the petitioner herein filed WP MP No. 31771 of 1998 seeking amendment of the prayer by challenging the impugned order dated 29-6-1998 passed by the respondents cancelling the performance of the candidate at the Intermediate Public Examinations October, 1997 besides debarring him for two subsequent examinations i. e. , March 1998 and October, 1998.

( 2 ) THE grievance of the petitioner is that the impugned order was passed without giving him an opportunity to explain his case and was passed without serving a show cause notice which is against to the principles of natural justice. The brief facts are as follows:the petitioner herein appeared for first year Intermediate Examination in the year 1996-97 and passed the same. As he wants to improve his performance he took up the supplementary examinations. On 4-11 -1997 while the petitioner was writing the Chemistry examination Special Squad of the Intermediate Board visited the examination hall and caught the petitioner copying in the examination. Accordingly, the Special Squad seized the Hall Ticket of the petitioner and asked him to leave the examination after taking spot explanation from him. In the spot explanation the petitioner requested the authorities to pardon him for his mistake. However, the matter was referred to the malpractice screening committee. The malpractice Screening Committee on verification of the entire material found that the petitioner has copied the forbidden material in his answer sheet and accordingly recommended punishment under item No. 3 of the Scale of Punishment to the candidates resorted to Malpractice Rules, 1981 by cancelling the performance of the candidate at the Intermediate Public Examinations October, 1997 besides debarring him for two subsequent examinations i. e. , March and October, 1998.

( 3 ) THE question that arises for consideration is whether the impugned order passed by the respondent herein is in accordance with law. Counsel for respondent produced the record and also filed counter to the effect that before passing the final orders a show-cause notice was issued to the petitioner on 18-6-1998 through the Principal of the concerned college and the petitioner herein has not offered any explanation to the show-cause notice and finally the impugned order was passed which is in accordance with law. Learned Counsel for respondent was directed to produce the evidence with regard to acknowledgment of service of show-cause notice to the petitioner. The respondent herein has failed to produce the said acknowledgment. It follows that the petitioner was not served with the show-cause notice and has no opportunity to offer his explanation and apart from that before inflicting the punishment against the petitioner the fairness demands that the petitioner should have been given a further opportunity to explain with regard to proposed punishment. The entire procedure adopted by the respondent herein suffers from the voice of arbitrariness and it violates the principles of natural justice.

( 4 ) LEARNED Counsel for the petitioner vehemently argued that the action of the respondent herein by imposing extreme punishment of cancelling the performance and debarring him for two subsequent examinations is not only arbitrary but it is violative of principles of natural justice and the same suffers from non-application of mind. It is further submitted that under the said Scale of Punishment, 1981, the instant case falls under item 2 (b) which reads as follows: Copying from the Cancellation of performance f

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