IN THE HIGH COURT OF ANDHRA PRADESH: AMARAVATI
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE DHIRAJ SINGH THAKUR, CHIEF JUSTICE
&
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE R. RAGHUNANDAN RAO
WRIT APPEAL No.847 of 2023
Mandava Krishna Kautilya,
S/o.M.Prabhakara Rao,
Aged 27 years, Occ: Student,
R/o.3-68, IL TD Colony, Kotha Peta (Rural),
Prakasam District - 523 157.
... Appellant / Writ Petitioner
Versus
State of Andhra Pradesh
Rep. by its Principal Secretary,
Health, Medical and Family Welfare,
Secretariat, Velagapudi,
Amaravati, Andhra Pradesh & two others.
... Respondents / Respondents
Counsel for the petitioner : Mr. V. Venkata Naga Raju Counsel for the respondents : Government Pleader for Health, Medical and Family Welfare
- R1 Mr. G. V. Rama Krishna
- R2 Mr. G. Vijaya Kumar, Standing Counsel
- R3 HCJ & RRR, J 2 W.A.No.847 of 2023 Dt.:13.10.2023 PER DHIRAJ SINGH THAKUR, CJ The present Writ Appeal under Clause 15 of the Letters Patent has been preferred against the Judgment and Order dated 27.07.2023 passed in W.P.No.13873 of 2023. The writ Court, by virtue of the judgment and order impugned directed the return of all the original documents of the petitioner lying with the NRI Medical College, Guntur / respondent No.2 herein, subject to the payment of the outstanding fee in accordance with the schedule prescribed in the said judgment.
2. It would be beneficial to briefly state the material facts in the background of which the present controversy has arisen:
The petitioner came to be admitted in the NRI Medical College in Guntur District in the year, 2015, for the Under-Graduate M.B.B.S. Course. The total tuition fee payable by the petitioner was Rs.56,42,600/-. The basis of the controversy before us is that, whereas the college claims that an amount of Rs.41,41,445/- is due and payable to it, the petitioner/appellant herein claims that the entire amount has since been paid. With a view to support and buttress the case of the petitioner that the amount stands paid in entirety, two payment memos were relied upon before the writ HCJ & RRR, J 3 W.A.No.847 of 2023 Court dated 03.12.2019 for an amount of Rs.25,00,000/- and dated 08.04.2020 for an amount of Rs.2,80,000/-. The factum of receipt of the aforementioned amount covered under the two payment memos was seriously denied by the respondent College.
3. In the reply affidavit filed by the NRI Medical College/respondent No.2 herein, it was alleged that the two receipts on which reliance was being placed by the petitioner were forged and fabricated and that the same had never been issued. 3.1 With a view to show that the memos were forged and fabricated, the following facts were highlighted: a. The serial number referred to in the receipt dated 03.12.2019 and the serial number which was maintained by the respondent College were completely different. It is stated that the serial number which is contained on the receipt reflecting payment of Rs.25,00,000/- is 2675 which is, in fact, the serial number issued for Rs.15,000/- to a candidate namely Mussinuri Venkatesh, which receipt contains the date as 21.11.2019. Further, as per the records, as on 03.12.2019, the date on which the alleged receipt was issued, the actual serial number of the receipt book contained the serial number 2800.
HCJ & RRR, J 4 W.A.No.847 of 2023 b. In regard to the 2nd receipt dated 08.04.2020 for an alleged amount of Rs.2,80,000/-, the stand of the College was that it had stopped issuing manual receipts and was substituted with "system generated receipts" which was in vogue from 01.04.2020. c. That the receipts dated 03.12.2019 and 08.04.2020 did not reflect the mode and method of payment whether the same was by cash, by cheque or by bank draft. Further, that Section 269ST of the Income Tax Act, 1961, placed restrictions on receiving more than Rs.2,00,000/- in cash and that ever since the said provisions came into force in the year, 2017, the respondent College had not received cash in excess of Rs.2,00,000/-. d. That the petitioner's father had addressed a letter to the college on 17.01.2020 informing the college that the entire dues would be cleared by 15.02.2020 and requested the college to permit the petitioner to write the exams and that in the said communication, no mention at all was made as regards the substantial payment of Rs.25,00,000/-.
4. The writ Court having considered the entire issue came to a conclusion that the petitioner had not approached the Court with clean hands and attempted to prejudice the Court to achieve its HCJ & RRR, J 5 W.A.No.847 of 2023 objective to avoid paying the remaining tuition fee amount. However, the writ court on humanitarian grounds, with a view to protect the future of the petitioner, directed the petitioner/his father to pay the remaining balance amount in two instalments, out of which, Rs.20,00,000/- was to be paid within a period of two weeks from the date of the judgment and the remaining amount was to be paid within a period of three months thereafter by submitting a bank guarantee for the said amount in favour of respondent No.2.
5. Learned counsel for the appellant urged that the view expressed by the writ Court was unsustainable in law inasmuch as the direction to release the documents could not have been made subject to the depositing of the outstanding fee. Reference and reliance in this regard was placed upon D.Vaishnavi Vs. State of Telangana1; Detla Srujan Bhupathi Varma Vs. The Joint Secretary, Department of Higher Education, New Delhi and Others2; and S.Muthukamatchi Vs. The Director of Technical Education, Anna University, Chennai and Others3, to emphasize the point that the certificates cannot legally be retained by the college on any ground 1 (2020) SCC Online TS 89 2 W.P.No.6722 of 2022, dated 16.03.2022 3 W.P.(MD) No.14394 of 2012, dated 18.12.2012 HCJ & RRR, J 6 W.A.No.847 of 2023 whatsoever especially on account of non-payment of fees by the petitioner and that the writ Court ought to have directed the college to release the documents irrespective of the fact whether the fees had been paid or not assuming the assertion of the college authorities were ultimately held to be correct.
6. We have heard learned counsel for the parties and gone through the record. Clearly, the assertion of the appellant with regard to payment of the entire fee to the college has seriously been not only disputed but has even been challenged by the respondent No.2 who claims that the basis for such a claim is untenable and the receipts dated 03.12.2019 and 08.04.2020 are nothing but forged and fabricated.
7. The additional affidavit filed by the college authorities supporting the theory of fabrication of receipts as enumerated in the preceding paragraph hereinabove also appears to be not entirely without any basis. While it may be true, that the college authorities legally cannot withhold the documents on account of non-payment of fee, yet the powers vested in this court under Article 226 are discretionary and can be refused to be exercised where it finds that the petitioner had not approached the Court HCJ & RRR, J 7 W.A.No.847 of 2023 with clean hands. Reference in this regard can be placed on the judgment of the Apex Court in S.P. Chengalvaraya Naidu Vs. Jagannath and Others4, wherein, the Apex Court deprecated unscrupulous persons who use the court process as a convenient lever to retain the illegal gains obtained by them indefinitely and it was held that a person whose case is based on falsehood had no right to approach the Court and could be summarily thrown out at any stage of litigation. It was further held "a litigant who approaches the Court is bound to produce all the documents executed by him which are relevant to the litigation. If he withholds a vital document in order to gain advantage on the other side, then he would be guilty of playing fraud on the Court as well as on the opposite party".
In A.V. Papayya Sastry and Others Vs. Government of Andhra Pradesh and Others5, the Apex Court held:
"26. Fraud may be defined as an act of deliberate deception with the design of securing some unfair or undeserved benefit by taking undue advantage of another. In fraud one gains at the loss of another. Even most solemn proceedings stand vitiated if they are actuated by fraud. Fraud is thus an extrinsic collateral act 4 (1994) 1 SCC 1 5 (2007) 4 SCC 221 HCJ & RRR, J 8 W.A.No.847 of 2023 which vitiates all judicial acts, whether in rem or in personam. The principle of "finality of litigation" cannot be stretched to the extent of an absurdity that it can be utilised as an engine of oppression by dishonest and fraudulent litigants."
8. Testing the facts of the present case on the touchstone of the aforementioned judgments, we are unable to convince ourselves that the petitioner would have paid an amount of Rs.25,00,000/- on 03.12.2019 when the petitioner's father by virtue of communication dated 02.12.2019 had expressed his inability to pay the fee on account of his money having got stuck due to lack of sales in the construction business and further expressed his intention to sell land and arrange the requisite resource by the end of January. By virtue of the said communication, the petitioner's father had clearly expressed his desire to clear all outstanding dues ending January, 2019, and therefore had made a request to permit the petitioner to take the exams.
9. We find it difficult to accept that the said amount had actually been paid on the very next date i.e. 03.12.2019, which receipt also does not reflect as to mode of payment of a huge amount of Rs.25,00,000/-. The fact that the petitioner's father had addressed a communication on 02.12.2019 has not been denied by the HCJ & RRR, J 9 W.A.No.847 of 2023 petitioner. Not only this, considering the specific objections raised by the NRI Medical College/respondent No.2 herein regarding genuineness of the receipts in regard to the receipts which are generally issued in the normal course of its transactions, we cannot persuade ourselves to arrive at a conclusion different from the one arrived at by the writ Court.
10. Be that as it may, we find no merit in the present appeal, which is accordingly dismissed. No costs.
Pending miscellaneous applications, if any, shall stand closed. DHIRAJ SINGH THAKUR, CJ R. RAGHUNANDRAN RAO, J kbs HCJ & RRR, J 10 W.A.No.847 of 2023 HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE DHIRAJ SINGH THAKUR, CHIEF JUSTICE & HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE R. RAGHUNANDAN RAO WRIT APPEAL No.847 of 2023 (per Dhiraj Singh Thakur, CJ) Dt: 13.10.2023 kbs