Research › Search › Judgment

Madhya Pradesh High Court · body

2022 DIGILAW 333 (MP)

AYUSHA BHATNAGAR v. STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH

2022-02-26

ANAND PATHAK

body2022
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. 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 statutory in nature came in her way because two contingencies have been contemplated in regulations for awarding of gold medals which are either Faculty Gold Medal or Sponsored Gold Medal. Here in the regulations, different faculties consists of many subjects and to bring relevancy in the order, faculty of Arts as per Board of Studies (Statute No. 10) are reproduced as under : – STATUTE NO. Here in the regulations, different faculties consists of many subjects and to bring relevancy in the order, faculty of Arts as per Board of Studies (Statute No. 10) are reproduced as under : – STATUTE NO. 10 BOARD OF STUDIES [Refer section 28(1)] There shall be a Board of Studies for each of the subject or groups of subjects mentioned below under the each Faculty thereof : Name of Faculty and Department (A) Faculty of Arts 1. English and other Foreign Languages 2. Sanskrit, Functional Sanskrit and Prachya Sanskrit 3. Pali, Prakrit 4. Hindi, Functional Hindi, Linguistics and Translation 5. Urdu, Arabic, Persian 6. Other Indian Languages 7. Philology 8. Philosophy 9. Music (Vocal, Instrumental) and Dance 10. Fine Arts (Drawing and Painting) 11. Performing Arts (Theater and Sculpture) 12. Library and Information Science 13. Journalism and Mass Communication 14. Fashion Designing (in case there is no Faculty of Vocational studies) 15. Interior Designing (in case there is no Faculty of Vocational studies) 16. Jyotirvigyan XX XX XX 11. From the list of subjects mentioned above, it appears that many more subjects are there beside English Literature. Surbhi Jha was student of M.A. Dance and she scored 88.5% whereas present petitioner scored 78.6% which is more than present petitioner, therefore, as per requisite of Faculty Gold Medal, Surbhi Jha became entitled to receive gold medal. No other person exceeded her performance. 12. Incidentally, Sponsored Gold Medal is available for meritorious candidate in Hindi Literature and Sanskrit Literature. List of Sponsored Gold Medals have been displayed by the university which is annexed with the reply. In the said list, it appears that English Literature was not sponsored by anybody. Therefore, students of Hindi Literature/Sanskrit Literature got benefit of benevolence because of sponsorship, whereas petitioner did not receive the same. 13. Even, petitioner was intimated by respondent/Registrar at appropriate time about her fate for convocation ceremony. 14. Considering the reply of respondent and the fact situation, petitioner despite being meritorious could not succeed in receiving gold medal. There is no other option left except to dismiss the petition in light of reply so filed. 15. Ordered accordingly.