ORDER :- The above writ petition has been filed praying to issue a Writ of Certiorarified Mandamus to call for the records relating to the proceedings of the second respondent made in Letter No. 5000/CDC/2000, dated 10-2000 and quash the same and consequently direct the respondents to recognize the degree of the 4th respondent for all purposes including appointments, promotions, higher studies and for doing Ph. D. etc. with all consequential benefits.

2. Petitioners, numbering 68, are all B.E./B. Tech. graduates and are all working as Lecturers in various colleges and with permission from their respective colleges they joined the M.S. Degree Course (Computer Science, Electronics Control etc. systems and Information, Software System and Technological Operations) by distance education system of the BITS, Pilani (Rajasthan) and have completed the course also and when it came to the matter of recognition, the Director of Technical Education, by the impugned order, has informed the petitioners that the M.S. Degree awarded by BITS, Pilani through correspondence programme is not considered as equivalent degree to that of M.E. Degree awarded by the Tamil Nadu Universities. Challenging the said order, the present writ petition has been filed.

3. The case of the petitioners is that the said degree was obtained by them by undergoing the regularly sponsored distance learning programmes of the BITS, Pilani, while being employed as Lecturers in various Engineering Colleges and Polytechnics in pursuance of the employers having met the entire academic pursuit to do the M.S. sponsored distance learned programme of BITS, Pilani, that BITS Pilani is a 'Deemed University' and the degrees which are awarded are automatically recognized and no formal orders of recognition are required, as per Office Memorandum No. 6/1/64-Estt.D. dated 29-4-1964; that the order of second respondent in treating the degree awarded by the pioneer Universities to have been not equivalent to the M.E./M. Tech Degree which hitherto was considered equivalent is illegal and that apart the said Institution has been established by an Act of Parliament in the year 1971 and was accorded the status of 'Deemed University' under the Universities Grants Commission Act, and hence the order of the second respondent suffers jurisdictional and for non-application of mind.

4. The petitioners would further submit that any degree set up by an Act of Parliament or a State Legislature are automatically recognized and the M.S. Degree of the BITS, Pilani was recognized equivalent to M.E./M. Tech degree of various other Universities; that the Madras University and Anna University area, by and large, slowly and steadily adopting the system that has been in vogue in BITS, Pilani and convert to that of the BITS system, but insofar as the recognition and equalisation is concerned, the second respondent would say that the number of subjects is 12 insofar as regular class candidates are concerned and as far as BITS, they are eight inclusive of project work (desertion) in III Semester like all other Universities whereas the fact remains that in Anna University and Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, the subjects are only five and the total number of credits that are accorded for consideration are 25 units insofar as BITS and 15 units insofar as the Anna University and the Indian Institute of Technology are concerned.

5. During arguments, the learned senior counsel for the petitioners would submit that the impugned order suffers for the following reasons :

1. The second respondent has no jurisdiction or authority to pass the impugned order.

2. Even assuming that he got the jurisdiction, he cannot straightway pass the order, without giving an opportunity and hearing to the petitioners and therefore it is in violation of the principles of natural justice since the very same Degree had been recognised by them for the past six years; and

3. Even assuming that the second respondent has jurisdiction and he can

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