Court seeks clarity from Punjab on withheld degrees, hints at compensation for students

Less than a fortnight after the Punjab and Haryana High Court expressed serious concern over the non-issuing of degrees to “hundreds of students” for the past up to five years, the bench has directed the state of Punjab to file an affidavit clarifying if universities, other than Panjab, have withheld certificates due to scholarship payment delays. The court also indicated it would deliberate on compensating the students suffering due to the administrative impasse.

“The state will also apprise this court by way of an affidavit as to whether any other university, except for Panjab University, has also retained any certificate/DMC because of the post-matric scholarship or not and if yes, then what corrective measures will be taken,” Justice Jasgurpreet Singh Puri asserted.

The bench was hearing a petition filed against the state and other respondents by Janak Raj and other petitioners through counsel Yagyadeep and Rajesh Kumar. The court observed that counsels for the parties apprised the bench during the course of arguments that the dispute with regard to the post-matric scholarship was pertaining to 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20. The amount after year 2020 was directly paid to the students.

“On the next date of hearing, this court will also consider as to how the dispute would be resolved in an amicable manner by holding a joint meeting between the officers concerned. So far, as the students who have been deprived of their degrees and DMCs only because of money is concerned, on the next date of hearing the same will be considered as to how they are to be compensated by fixing of responsibility,” Justice Puri asserted.

Appearing before the bench, Punjab Additional Advocate-General Saurav Khurana submitted the total amount due, reflected in an affidavit filed by Panjab University, was Rs 2,70,81,915. It would be released to the varsity within two weeks. Varsity counsel, in turn, submitted that it would issue all pending degrees and DMCs within a week of receiving the amount. The centre was represented by Additional Solicitor-General of India Satya Pal Jain.

The petitioners’ stand in the matter was that they were covered by the post-matric scholarship scheme, the benefit of which was given by the Centre and the state government to the government colleges. They were not under the liability to pay examination fee because as it stood waived off in case of reserved category candidates.

Taking up the matter, Justice Puri had earlier asserted: “This court takes very serious view of such like cases, wherein the petitioners, who are the students belonging to the reserved category, have not been issued their certificates/degrees and there is no fault on their part in this regard. The students are not to pay any examination fee which is an admitted position. The examination fee is to be paid by the college to Panjab University and interestingly the college is a government college”.