Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, June 4: Division Bench of State High Court comprising Chief Justice M M Kumar and Justice D S Thakur today dismissed with certain modifications the appeal filed by the Divya College of Education against the judgement of Single Judge whereby college was directed to consider payment of Rs 50,000 each to 292 students, who were admitted in violation of University Statue.
After hearing Senior Advocate Sunil Sethi with Advocates Aijaz Mehrab and MK Raina for the petitioner whereas AAG Seema Shekhar for the State and Advocate W S Nargal for the University of Jammu, DB observed, “permission to set up a BEd College or its subsequent affiliation by University of Jammu & Kashmir does not carry with it an implied promise of continuous flow of students to such colleges nor does it carry with any implied promise to ensure economic viability of such colleges at all times”.
“The colleges must deliver in performance by ensuring compliance by conforming to the minimum standards prescribed by University in terms of infrastructure and highly trained, qualified motivated and distinguished faculty. The results of extra effort put in by the colleges would then get reflected through the students at the time of performance of their result”, the DB said.
“The colleges must either perform and deliver or perish. The best judge regarding the performance of colleges is the student community itself, who exercise their right of choice at the time of counseling”, the DB said, adding “a student must be given the right to study in a particular subject, of course to merit and availability of seats in a college of his choice. Any effort to distribute students among the colleges, ignoring their wishes, would strike at the very principle of merit-cum-choice, defeat the entire effort of counseling by the university and would be against the university Statutes and the law”.
“Therefore the direction issued by Writ Court to take fresh look at the absolute discretion given to a student to opt for admission in a college of his choice would not be sustainable”, the DB said.
With these modifications, Division Bench dismissed the appeal filed by the Divya College of Education.
Follow our WhatsApp channel