The absence of specific time limits prescribed by the University Grants Commission for completing PhD courses and submitting the thesis, leaving the framing of rules and regulations to the universities, influenced the court's decision to direct the respondents to consider the petitioners' case and allow them to complete their PhD program.

ORDER

V. Sujatha, J. - This writ petition came to be filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India seeking the following relief:

'...to issue a Writ, Order or Direction more particularly one in nature of Writ of Mandamus declaring the action of the 2nd and 3rd respondents in not permitting the petitioners to complete the Doctorate in Philosophy (PhD) Course purportedly on the grounds of non-payment of course fee/extension fee and/or non-submission of DCMS/Thesis in time as wholly illegal, arbitrary, unjust, contrary to Principles of Natural Justice, besides being violative of Article 14 and 21 of Constitution of India and consequently direct the respondents to permit the petitioners to complete Ph.D Course by condoning the delay for payment fee and by providing one time opportunity to complete their respective Courses and pass such..'

2. All the petitioners herein are part-time research scholars pursuing their respective Ph.D. Courses in the respondent university and are actively engaged in research with 12 to 30 years of unblemished experience in postgraduate and/or undergraduate teaching and/or research at State Level/National level, public and private institutions in their respective fields. The petitioners herein have joined in the respondent university in the academic years 2009 and 2010, with a hope to accomplish their respective Ph.D. Degree's by the Academic years 2015 or 2017 as the minimum period for completion of the course is 4 years and maximum being 6 years. But, the respondent university has not started research process till the academic year 2010-11 and as soon as the research process has started, the respondent university has halted the process from the academic years 2011-12 to 2014-15, without any prior notice to any of the research scholars and had declared academic holidays to the university.

3. After four years i.e. in the academic year 2015-16, the respondent university has resumed the research process, but, the resumption was not relayed to the research scholars and the respondent university was negligent in conducting DCM's and notifying the same to the research scholars. The case of the petitioners is that in a span of 10 years, the petitioners were afforded only 5 years for research in their respective fields. Due to Covid-19 pandemic prevailing in the month of March, 2019, the UGC issued guidelines in the month of April, 2020 leaving it open to the universities to allow the Ph.D. Scholars for conducting research or not and further recommended extension of six months for those students, whose maximum period for submission of thesis is expired during the pandemic period including pending formalities. Though other universities continued research process through online mode even during the pandemic period, the respondent university halted the entire process on account of some internal research irregularities and remained dysfunctional from March, 2019 to March, 2023. As such, the petitioners were deprived of the opportunities such as submission of thesis in time and payment of requisite fees in time.

4. The further case of the petitioners is that though the respondent university has reinitiated the Ph.D. programme and has conducted viva voce to the candidates who have submitted their thesis in 2019, the respondent authorities have orally informed the petitioners that no further steps would be taken in their respective cases for completion of Ph.D. and for submission of doctoral thesis, on the ground of non-payment of requisite fee and non-submission of doctoral thesis in time. The petitioners further submit that the University Grants Commission has neither prescribed any minimum or maximum time limit within which a student has to complete the course or to submit the thesis after appearing for the examination, nor has laid down any guidelines to determine the minimum period required for submission of thesis after research work, but, it is for the university concerned to frame their own statutes, rules