The court upheld the university's prerogative to set age limits for fellowship eligibility, finding no legal violations.

JUDGMENT

Petitioners have approached this Court with the following prayers :-

i.Declare that the fixation of maximum age limit of 35 years for applying for the fellowship from 2019 will not either be applicable to the petitioner or is ultra vires to the Constitution of India, illegal, arbitrary, and unjust.

ii. Issue a writ of certiorari or other appropriate writ, order or direction quashing the Exhibit P9 issued by the MG University or in the alternative to declare that Exhibit P9 notification shall not have any retrospective effect and shall not be applicable to the petitioners.

iii.Declare that the petitioners are entitled to be considered for the grant of fellowship every month.

iv. Issue a writ of mandamus or other appropriate writ, order or direction commanding the respondents to grant University Junior Research Fellowship to the petitioners. [

2. Petitioners have filed this writ petition, aggrieved by the non-

disbursement of fellowship amounts since March 2017 and also by the rejection of their claim for fellowship by communication dated 13.11.2020, produced as Ext.P13. By the aforesaid communication, petitioners representation claiming University Junior Research Fellowship was refused. It was specifically mentioned that the Syndicate had decided to enhance the age limit for claiming the benefit of fellowship from 28 to 35 on the request of the students itself and that the request for further enhancement in age was declined. According to the petitioners, there is not rationale in restricting the age limit to 35 and hence Ext.P9 notification is bad in law.

3. In the statement filed on behalf of the first respondent it was stated as follows:

5.Based on the recommendations of the Statutory Selection Committee constituted for the award of University Junior Research Fellowships, the Syndicate of the University resolved to prescribe the age limit for availing UJRF to be in tune with the UGC-CSIR fellowships from the academic year 2019-2020 onwards and orders were issued accordingly. As the age limit for UGC-CSIR fellowship was 28 years, several scholars registered in the university requested for a reconsideration of the upper age limit for the award of UJRF. A committee was constituted including Syndicate members and student representatives to study and resolve the problems related to the distribution of fellowship. The Committee 'Resolved to recommend to enhance the upper age limit for applying for the University Junior Research Fellowship to 35 years of age from 2019-20 academic year onwards'. This recommendation was approved by the Syndicate.

4. Having heard the learned counsel for the petitioners as well as the learned Standing Counsel for the respondents, this Court notices that the decision to enhance the age limit for UGC-CSIR fellowship, which was earlier 28 years, was enhanced to 35 years from the academic year 2019–2020 by a decision of the Syndicate. The said decision of the Syndicate referred as (3) in Ext.P13 has not been challenged in this writ petition. Petitioners are admittedly ineligible to claim the benefit of fellowship by virtue of their age as stipulated in the said decision of the Syndicate. Petitioners had registered as Ph.D. research scholars prior to 2019, and at that time they were not eligible for the fellowship. The notification inviting applications for the award of the fellowship, produced as Ext.P9, specifically prescribed the age limit as 35 years. The petitioners had not acquired any fellowship prior to 2019.

5. The decision of the Syndicate to fix a particular age limit for conferring the benefit of fellowship falls within the prerogative right of the decision making authority. In the absence of any allegation of arbitrary action or even a challenge, such fixation cannot be said to be illegal or violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India. Hence, I fin