The central legal point established in the judgment is the responsibility of the college to ensure the timely deposit of examination fees and the court's authority to direct necessary actions to rectify negligence and protect the academic careers of students.

JUDGMENT :

The present writ petition has been filed for issuance of direction upon the respondents to show cause as to why and under what circumstance, the petitioner’s daughter, namely, Jaya Shivangi has not been issued admit card so as to enable her to appear in Intermediate Examination (Science) for the Session 2020-22 from Sohan Lal Arya Inter College, Kalyanpur, Bokaro (respondent no. 4), despite the fact that she has completed the course and has also paid all the required fees. The petitioner has further prayed for issuance of direction upon the respondents to immediately issue the provisional admit card and allow the petitioner’s daughter to appear in the said examination to be conducted by the respondent-Jharkhand Academic Council.

2. The writ petition was initially taken up by this Court on 23.03.2022 and on the said date, learned counsel for the respondent-JAC prayed for an adjournment to come up with specific instruction so that the petitioner’s daughter and other similarly situated students would be permitted to appear in the special examination as well as to ensure that they would be able to appear in the forthcoming competitive examinations also. Thereafter, the writ petition was taken up on the next day i.e., on 24.03.2022 and on the said date, learned counsel for the respondent-JAC submitted that the JAC was taking all possible steps to conduct special examination of those candidates whose application forms were not forwarded by the respective colleges in time. Learned counsel assured the Court that career of all the eligible candidates including the petitioner’s daughter will not be adversely affected and a special examination would be conducted as soon as possible. Learned counsel, however, prayed for two weeks’ time to file counter affidavit with respect to the steps being taken by the respondent-JAC in this regard. On the said date, a notice was also issued to the respondent no. 4. Thereafter, counter affidavits were filed on behalf of the respondent nos. 1 to 3 (JAC) as well as the respondent no. 4. A supplementary counter affidavit in response to the counter affidavit filed by the respondent no. 4 has also been filed on behalf of the respondent-JAC.

3. The specific stand of the petitioner taken in the writ petition is that though the examination application form along with requisite fees was already submitted by the petitioner’s daughter in the office of the respondent no. 4, yet the admit card for appearing in the Intermediate Examination (Science) was not issued to her by the respondent-JAC.

4. The respondent nos. 1 to 3 (JAC) in their counter affidavit dated 13.04.2022 have submitted that total 1602 students submitted their examination forms to the JAC to appear in the Annual Intermediate Examination, 2022 from Sohan Lal Arya Inter College, Kalyanpur, Bokaro. According to Advertisement No. 40 of 2021, the date of submission of examination application form for the said examination was fixed from 28.10.2021 to 20.11.2021. However, the said date was further extended from 01.02.2022 to 08.02.2022 vide Advertisement No. 02/2022 at the request of various collages and students. Despite such extension of date, the respondent no. 4 did not submit the examination application forms of 83 students (65 in Science and 18 in Commerce) due to which the admit cards were not issued to them by the JAC. Out of the said 83 students, the checklist (annexed as Annexure-4 to the writ petition) with respect to the petitioner’s daughter mentions the challan status as “not paid”, which clearly suggests that the respondent no. 4 did not deposit her examination fee before the JAC due to which her admit card could not be issued. The respondent-JAC in the said counter affidavit while referring to Clause 43 of the “Regulations for Examinations” approved by the Jharkhand Academic Council under Section 27(b) and (c) of the Jharkhand Academic Council Act, 2002 has stated that compartmental examination is organized by the respondent-JAC for