Principles of natural justice necessitate an opportunity to be heard before cancellation of admission; failure to provide this renders the decision invalid.

JUDGMENT

Petitioner challenges an order issued by the Vice-Chancellor dated

25.09.2025 as well as the consequential order dated 07.10.2025, issued by the third respondent. Petitioner also seeks for a direction to regularize his Ph.D.

registration for the academic year 2024-25.

2. Petitioner was a student of the Govt. Engineering College, Thrissur, for the academic year 2022-2024, in the M.Tech Batch, in Manufacturing Systems Management. Though he claims that he has been a meritorious student, it is admitted that during the first semester of his M.Tech programme, he failed in three first semester courses. According to the petitioner, he had cleared the failed subjects in December 2022, December 2023 and December 2024, thereby indicating that, despite his failure, his results were processed and published while he was part of the 2022-2024 M.Tech batch.

3. While so, the respondent University invited applications for Ph.D.

admission for the academic year 2024-25. Since Ext.P3 notification stipulated that even the final semester students, who were awaiting the publication of results, were also permitted to apply, petitioner submitted his application. Later, he appeared for the entrance examination on 18.08.2024 and was even called for an interview on 29.11.2024 and was thereafter provisionally selected for admission. In the meantime, since the results of the three first semester examinations were not published by the cut off date for admission to the Ph.D. course, the Controller of Examinations issued a Confidential Certificate confirming that the petitioner had passed those three pending papers. According to the petitioner, the confidential pass certificate issued by the University on 24.03.2025 confirmed that he had cleared the three pending first semester examination subjects for the M.Tech programme, enabling the University to process his application for Ph.D. admission and also that, the admission granted to the petitioner was regular.

4. In the meantime, when the University failed to constitute a Doctoral Committee, petitioner filed W.P.(C) No.18643 of 2025 and by judgment dated 09.09.2025, this Court directed the Vice-Chancellor to take a decision on the constitution of the doctoral committee after observing that the delay in issuance of the marklist cannot be attributed to the petitioner. Petitioner alleges that on the basis of the said direction, the Vice-Chancellor issued an order on 25.09.2025 cancelling the petitioner’s Ph.D. admission and consequently refusing to constitute the doctoral committee, which was communicated to the petitioner by Ext.P7 order of the third respondent dated 07.10.2025. Petitioner alleges that the impugned order was issued without affording him an opportunity of hearing and also without even issuing a notice regarding the cancellation of petitioner’s Ph.D. admission. Petitioner alleges that he has been penalised not for any deficiency in merit, but due to the technical delay on the part of the University in publishing its results. 5. A counter affidavit has been filed by respondents 1 and 2 stating that the petitioner had appeared and cleared the first semester examinations only after issuance of Ph.D. entrance notification and therefore, having been a failed candidate at the time of application, which was not informed to the University, petitioner did not satisfy the eligibility criteria. It was also stated that petitioner had appeared for the first semester supplementary examination, the results of which was published on 11.09.2024 and appeared for the first semester supplementary examination for a second time in December 2024/January 2025, the results of which were published only on 30.04.2025, which was after the extended last date for admission. It was stated that the