The central legal point established in the judgment is the significance of University regulations, particularly Statute No. 10, in determining the criteria for awarding gold medals and the distinction between Faculty Gold Medal and Sponsored Gold Medal.

ORDER/JUDGMENT : – Shri Ashish Jadon, learned counsel for petitioner.

Shri G. K. Agrawal, learned Government Advocate for respondent No. 1/State.

Ms. Anuradha Singh, learned counsel for respondents No. 2 and 3/University.

By way of filing this writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, petitioner has sought following reliefs : –

(i) That, the Gold Medal List (Annexure P/4) may kindly be set asid in the interest of justice. (ii) That, the direction for issuing a Fresh Gold Medal List while adding the name of the present petitioner may kindly be issued against the respondent authorities in the interest of justice. Or (iii) That, the direction for deciding the representation (Annexure P/5) with the well-reasoned self-contained speaking order may kindly be issued against the respondent authorities in the interest of justice.

2. It is the submission of counsel for petitioner that she is meritorious student of M.A. English Literature, scored 78.60 marks in merit list and topped the said list in the academic session 2017-2019. Every year convocation ceremony is held in which meritorious students are awarded Gold Medal.

3. Grievance as echoed in the petition is that in the subject of English Literature, no Gold Medal is intended to be awarded by University and if it would have been awarded then it would have gone to the petitioner, whereas in subjects of Hindi Literature and Sanskrit Literature, gold Medals are being awarded. He raised the plea of discrimination and arbitrariness in this regard.

4. Counsel for the respondent/University filed reply and opposed the prayer. According to learned counsel, University has a mechanism of awarding gold Medal in convocation ceremony on the basis of regulations provided in reply as Annexure R-1. Said regulations contemplate two contingencies.

1. Faculty Gold Medal which is being awarded by the University to toppers of Graduate and Post Graduate Courses in every Faculty. 2. Sponsored Gold Medal wherein any donor or sponsorer if sponsors the Gold Medal in a particular subject, then said Gold Medal is awarded to the topper of the Course.

5. Here, no sponsor is available so far as M.A. (English) is concerned whereas two different sponsors sponsored the Hindi Literature and Sanskrit Literature (Post-graduate course) Gold Medal therefore, those Sponsored Gold Medals are being awarded to the toppers of those subjects.

6. So far as Faculty Gold Medal is concerned, she referred different faculties and department as contained in Statute No. 10 (Board and Studies) filed as Annexure R-3 to bring home the fact that different Faculties (consisting of many subjects) carry single Gold Medal and that Gold Medal goes to a candidate who tops the faculty irrespective of his/her subject. Since Faculty of Arts contains 16 subjects in which English, Hindi and Sanskrit, etc. all come under one umbrella, therefore, topper of different subjects coming under the Faculty of Arts, gets opportunity to receive Gold Medal.

7. In the present case, Surbhi Jha, (M.A. Dance) scored 88.5% marks and topped the list, whereas present petitioner scored 78.60% marks, much below the topper. Therefore, Faculty Gold Medal goes to Surbhi Jha and not to the petitioner. She prayed for dismissal of petition.

8. Learned counsel for the respondent/University referred the letter dated 23-8-2021 written by Registrar and addressed to the petitioner in which reason for not awarding gold medal in M.A. English is explained. Convocation held on 27-8-2021 and before that on 23-8-2021 itself, this intimation was forwarded to the petitioner. She prayed for dismissal of petition.

9. Heard.

10. This is a case where petitioner appears to be a meritorious student and therefore, as a natural corollary to it, she sought gratification by way of recognition through its Alma-Mater, Jiwaji University by way of gold medal. Indeed, she topped her subject (M.A. English Literature) in academic session 2017-2019 but relevant regulations which are stat