( 1 ). IN this Writ Petition a challenge has been laid to the decision of the Indian Institute of Foreign Technology sic Trade (hereinafter called the IIFT) removing the Petitioner from the Masters in Business Administration, 2002-2004 conducted by it. The Petitioner had applied to the IIFT while he was in the Final Year of Engineering and had scored 650 marks out of 800 in the Graduate Management Aptitude Test (GMAT ). All students were required to submit their eligibility qualification, in the present case the Engineering Degree, as well as the Mark Sheet, on or before 3rd October, 2002. In paragraph 6 of the Petition it has been specifically pleaded that " the Respondents had stated at the time of selection that in case the Petitioner does not get 50% in the Bachelor Degree Engineering Examination and fails to submit the result by 3rd October, 2002, his admission will stand cancelled. . . . . . . Thus admission of the Petitioner was on provisional basis subject to the filing of the Mark sheet. " This is indeed a significant admission. The result of the Engineering Degree was declared in August/september, 2002 and the Petitioner was shown as `failed , having obtained 850 out of 1500 marks. He thereupon applied for Revaluation on 2nd September, 2002. The Petitioner has averred that he immediately informed the Respondents in the 1st week of September, 2002 that he had applied for Revaluation of his result and that he would submit his Mark Sheet as and when he would be conveyed the result of the Revaluation. This statement has been categorically denied by the IIFT, and in the absence of any documentary proof on such an important issue, I would accept the stand of the IIFT. It is not in dispute that the First Semester examinations were held on 15. 9. 2002, that is before the deadline of submissions of results i. e. 3. 10. 2002 and hence the Petitioner was allowed to appear in these examinations. It has next been pleaded in the Petition that in the third week of September, 2002 the Petitioner went to Pune where he was informed that the University would announce the Revaluation result in November, 2002. It is stated that the Petitioner orally informed the IIFT that the results would be declared in the third week of November, 2002, but he was not permitted to attend classes. The Petitioner s Representation dated 17. 10. 2002 was considered by the Rules Committee of IIFT in its meeting held on 31. 10. 002 but was rejected. On 25/29 November, 2002, the University of Pune, after the revaluation exercise, declared the Petitioner as having passed in the B. E. Degree Course and that he had been placed in high Second Class. The Certificate and Mark Sheet dated 29th November, 2002 was submitted by the Petitioner to the IIFT on 3rd December, 2002.

( 2 ). ALTHOUGH no challenge has been laid to the fixation of the cut-off date of 3rd October, this matter has received the attention of the Apex Courts on several occasions, the pronouncements are to the effect that cut-off dates should not be elasticised by judicial verdicts. The first opinion is to be found in Union of India and Another Versus Sudhir Kumar Jaiswal (1994) 4 Supreme Court Cases 212 which reads thus:

"3. THAT there can be no arbitrariness in fixation of even a cut-off date is not disputed before us by the learned Additional Solicitor General who has appeared for the appellant. This stand has been correctly taken, because after Art. 14 has spread its wings in the field of administrative law following what was principally held in Maneka Gandhi case no stand can be taken by any administrative authority that it can act arbitrarily. Indeed, even before the decision in Maneka Gandhi law was that no administrative authority has absolute discretion to decide a matter within its competence the way it chooses. This has been the accepted position and this Court had cited with approval what had been stated in this regard in United States v. Martin Wunderlich the relevant part of