The central legal point established in the judgment is the importance of hearing necessary parties in a dispute and affording them a reasonable opportunity to defend themselves.

JUDGMENT :

Gurpal Singh Ahluwalia, J.

1. This petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India has been filed seeking the following reliefs:-

"(i) That, the annexure P/1 and P/2 may kindly be set aside.

(ii) That, the respondents may be directed to deposit the scholarship amount (tuition fee and other mandatory fee) directly in the account of institution rather than students.

(iii) That, the respondents may be directed not to give an effect to the modified regulations of the Post Matric Scholarship Policy.

(iv) That, the respondents may be directed not to discriminate in the scholarship policy among government and non-government institutions.

(v) Any other suitable direction which this Hon'ble Court deems fit in the facts and circumstances of the case may kindly be passed."

2. It is submitted by the counsel for the petitioner that the petitioner is running an Engineering College and by impugned circular dated 2/9/2016 the respondents have modified the earlier regulation and now as per the modified provision, it has been ordered that the scholarship of students studying in private institutions would be deposited in the account of the students belonging to backward, Scheduled Tribes as well as scheduled castes. It is submitted that disbursement of scholarship amount directly in the accounts of students is fatal to the objective of the scholarship policy. Earlier the respondents had amended the regulation/executive instructions called as Backward Class Post Matric Scholarship Regulations, 2013 and clause 8.4 was added and as per the amended provisions, the scholarship amount, i.e. tuition fee, compulsory fee & maintenance amount, shall be credited to the accounts of the students. Now by the impugned order it has been held that tuition fee, examination and other mandatory fee would be deposited in the account of Government institutions. It is the case of the petitioner that this has resulted in discrimination without any reasonable nexus amongst the government and non-government institutions. It is submitted that in fact the students are not depositing their tuition fee and are misappropriating the same, as a result, the petitioner is suffering financially, because not only he is under compulsion to run the classes, but the petitioner is also under compulsion to allow such defaulter students to appear in the examination. Accordingly, the petitioner has submitted representations for modifying the policy in respect of private institutions, but the respondents are not paying any heed. It is further submitted that by order dated 5/1/2019 the institutions have been directed to forward the examination form of the students belonging to reserved category irrespective of the fact that whether they have deposited tuition fee or not. It is further submitted that in view of the new policy of disbursement of scholarship directly in the account of students, now most of the students are not depositing the tuition fee and the petitioner has filed a copy of the list of students, Annexure P/8, who according to the petitioner have left the courses and have not deposited the scholarship amount. It is submitted by the counsel for the petitioner that there is no rational behind the discrimination made between the government institutions and the private institutions and thus, it is violative of Articles 14 and 19 of the Constitution of India.

3. During the course of arguments, it was fairly conceded by the counsel for the petitioner that this situation has arisen because of non-deposit of tuition fee by the students and if the students continue to deposit the tuition fee regularly, then they are not aggrieved by the policy decision of the State Government. In the light of the submissions made by the counsel for the petitioner, the counsel for the petitioner was directed to implead all the students, who according to the petitioner have not deposited the tuition fee etc. and have left the courses in midway. However, the counsel for the petitioner continuou