JUDGMENT
1. The University of Mumbai, detected the use of unfair means during the course of the examination in the subject of Machine Design-I for the Seventh Semester of the Degree Course of Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering. The University convened an Unfair Means Enquiry Committee to investigate into the allegations against the students involved. They are the petitioners before the Court in the five writ petitions. The Unfair Means Enquiry Committee came to the conclusion after an enquiry in which the students participated that the use of unfair means had been established. Final orders were passed by the University. The students concerned have been informed that their performance in the examination has treated as null and void. Besides this four students who are the petitioners before the Court in Writ Petitions Nos. 1249, 1250, 1252 and 1253 of 2001 stand debarred from appearing at any examination of the University or College till the end of the first half of the year 2001. In the case of the fifth student, the petitioner in W. P. No. 1241 of 2001, the debarment is until the end of the second half of the year 2001.
2. The question paper in issue was in the subject of Machine Design-I of the revised course of the Bachelor of Engineering examination. The instructions given to the students allowed them the use of a Data Book compiled by PSG/Mahadevan. The students were also instructed that they were permitted to assume any additional data wherever required, giving reasons for doing so. At the outset, it would merit being recorded that the question paper in issue related to the final year of the B. E. Examination. Students of the final year are expected to have achieved a sufficient degree of proficiency in the branch of Engineering in which they would shortly be completing their studies for the degree. Students are thus permitted to utilize the data book which gives them the relevant data and in certain cases, the formulae. But, what is of importance is that students have a wide choice available, within the parameters of the data which is furnished in the data book to make an appropriate selection of data on the basis of which the relevant Machine Design can be prepared. The questions which are posed to the students are, therefore, unlike conventional questions which are posed in the course of an examination in the sense that these questions are not essay type questions or, questions which require recollection by the students from their memory. The essential data is before the student and the data which is available gives to each student a wide degree of flexibility and choice to make an appropriate selection in the preparation of a Machine Design. This aspect of the matter is of significance is the facts and circumstances of the present case because it has been held in decided cases that a mere similarity of answers may not be sufficient to establish a case of copying at an examination. This principle is apposite in examinations where the aptitude of a student to reproduce material studied from a prescribed text book, recollecting what he has studied from his memory is what is the subject matter of the test or examination. Rote learning or recollection from memory should not form the basis of a true examination. But, in that respect our examination system as it stands, is more often than not a test of the memory of a student more than his application of mind to the principles which he has learnt. Be that as it may, in the examination which was held in the present case, students were permitted to have access to the data book and to write down their answers by making a suitable application of the data which they have selected during the course of examination.
3. The examiner noticed in the present case that the answers which were written by five students, who are the petitioners before this Court in this batch of petitions, were identical for several questions. On a closer analysis, it was found that in the case of certain specific questions, the answers were completely identical and in fact several pages of the answer books of the students were absolutely the same, to use a common expression, "word for word". Accordingly, a show cause notice dated 15th March, 2001 came to be issued to each one of the said students calling upon them to attend the enquiry which had been convened by the University. In the show cause notice which was issued to the students, the specific allegation which had been made against each one of them was adverted to. The allegation was that the student concerned had mutually copied certain specific answers from a specified candidate at the examination. Thus, for instance in Writ Petition No. 1249 of 2001, the first in this batch of petitions, the following allegation was contained in the show cause notice:--
"It is alleged against you that you and candidates Nos. 3447 and 3450, who appeared at the said examination in one and the same block have mutually copied Q. No. 1(b) with candidate No. 3447 and Q. No. 2(a) (b) with candidate No. 3450, while writing your paper in the subject of Machine Design-I and therefore, your answers to the said questions are identical with the answers of the said candidates. You have thereby practiced unfair means when you appeared at the B. E.
(Sem. VII) Mechancial Engineering Examination held in the second half of the year 2000."
In response to the show cause notice, the students appeared before the Unfair Means Enquiry Committee. The students were shown their answer sheets and were permitted an opportunity of filing their replies. After the replies were considered by the Committee, the Committee forwarded its report to the University in which the Committee stated that the candidates had admitted that their answers to the questions in issue were identical. The Committee observed that the candidates had mutually copied their answers 'word to word and decimal point to decimal point to the extent of 12 pages and such a similarity in the answers could not be possible unless the answers were copied by the mutual consent of the candidates involved. In these circumstances, the explanation which was offered by the candidates came to be rejected. By a communication dated 11th April 2001, the University informed the candidates that besides cancelling their performance at the examination in which the malpractice had taken place, they were being debarred for appearing at any College or University examination thereafter for the specified period. In the case of one candidate, the petitioner before the Court in Writ Petition No. 1251 of 2001, the period of debarment has been extended "to the second half of the year 2001, while in the case of the other four candidates it extends to the first half of the current year. The reason why a distinction has been drawn in the case of the petitioner in W. P. No. 1251 of 2001 is that because it has been found by the Committee that he was engaged in copying not from one, but from two students in respect of separate answers.
4. Before dealing with the contentions urged on behalf of the petitioners, it would be necessary to have a look at some of the essential aspects of the present case. The PSG Data Book which is provided to the students gives data for material properties and formulae, but admittedly it does not provide students with the procedure to be employed for preparing a design or solving a problem. The two questions in the subject of Machine Design-I in which the copying is alleged to have taken place were question Nos. 1(b) and question Nos. 2(a) and 2(b) respectively. Question No. 1(b) as well as Question Nos. 2(a) and 2(b) are mathematical questions and not theoretical in nature. There is merit in the submission urged on behalf of the University that in answering such questions, the approach, choice of data, the assumptions to be made and even the design is bound to vary from individual to individual. The candidate involved before the Court in Writ Petition No. 1252 of 2001 and the candidate in Writ Petition No. 1253 of 2001 have been found to have mutually copied question No. l(b) consisting of 19 marks. 12 pages of the answer books of these two candidates are found to be identical. Besides the identity in the contents of the answer books, the following features have been noted in their answer books :
(i) The procedural steps in designing are the same for the entire length of question Nos. 1(b); (ii) The diagram is the same and even the mistakes in the diagram are identical. In one of the two answer books, a rough sketch which has hurriedly been copied finds a place along side the diagram; (iii) the filler statements which each student is required to choose are completely identical. These filler statements were made when the solution was to be by trial and error; and (iv) The answers of the two students have been copied identically upto five decimal places. 5. A similar comparison has been made of the answers of the two students involved in Writ Petition No. 1250 of 2001 and Writ Petition No. 1251 of 2001 where also the students are found to have copied Question No. 1(b). In this case also several pages of the answer books are the same. The procedural steps involved are the same. The filler statements are the same. The answers have been given upto five decimals and even the mistakes in the answer books are the same. 6. Finally, a comparison has been submitted between the students involved in Writ Petitions Nos. 1251 of 2001 and 1249 of 2001, These students have been involved in the copying of answers to questions Nos. 2(a) and 2(b) and the contents of a number of pages in the answer books are identical. Here also the procedural steps and filler statements are the same and the answers have been furnished upto four decimal places. The answers are absolutely identical. 7. The attention of the Court has also been drawn to the fact that the answers of the petitioner in Writ Petition No. 1251 of 2001 to Question Nos. 2(a) and 2(b) are identical to the answers of the petitioner in Writ Petition No. 1249 of 2001. Similarly, the answer of the petitioner before the Court in Writ Petition No. 1251 of 2001 to Question No. 1(b) is identical to the answer of the petitioner in Writ Petition No. 1250 of 2001.
8. The University has filed an affidavit in reply to these proceedings. In the affidavit in reply, it has been stated that answers to questions in the Machine Design-I paper at the Seventh Semester of the Mechanical Engineering Course cannot be written by rote learning. The student is required to work out solutions to the questions posed by using analytical methods and techniques which cannot be reproduced verbatim in every other answer book. It has been stated that the members of the Unfair Means Enquiry Committee are Senior Teachers drawn from the Faculty. The questions which have been posed at the examination have not been repeatedly asked in previous examinations. A student was required to obtain procedural solutions distinguished by a variety of steps leading to the Machine Design. The University has stated that except for the mutually copied answers of the petitioners before the Court which were identical, the answers written by the petitioners to other questions are not identical. Besides the answers written by the other students at the examination have not been found to be identical. Reference has been made to the fact that the students have used identical Tillers', and 'assumptive in between statements' which would show that they had mutually copied their answers. It has been stated that it is only in the case of these five students that the answers matched 'word for word and decimal point to decimal point'. The mistakes which were committed by the students including scoring off or scratching were identical.
9. The Learned Counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioners urged in these circumstances that he only wished to argue as to whether the enquiry was conducted in a fair manner. Learned counsel also submitted that even if the answers are similar this does not show that copying is proved. Insofar as the fairness of the enquiry is concerned, it was sought to be urged that the report of the examiner was not furnished to the students. There is absolutely no merit in the contention that the enquiry was vitiated. The question as to whether the answers which were written by the students involved in the present case are identical is a matter of visual comparison and identification. All the students were shown the answer books and most of them have in fact, admitted candidly that their answers are indeed identical. The examiner who detected the malpractice merely drew the attention of the authorities to the bare fact that he has found these five cases where the answers books were identical for certain specified questions. The report of the examiner, upon scrutiny by the University authorities, led to the issuance of a show cause notice dated 15th March, 2001 and the show cause notice contained a narration of the allegations against the concerned students. The show cause notice disclosed what was the allegation which was to be enquired into and this was exactly what the examiner had detected. There was therefore, no question of the University having kept back any material. The students were clearly put on notice of the allegations which were levelled against them and were given an adequate opportunity of defending themselves. The students were permitted to inspect their answer books and to make such submissions as they wished to make during the course of the enquiry. It was only after the students were given an opportunity of being heard that the final order came to be passed. Having regard to the circumstances of the present case, therefore, there has been more than sufficient compliance of the rules of natural justice and I do not find any substance in the contention urged on behalf of the petitioners.
10. The learned counsel then sought to urge that a mere similarity in the answers cannot be a ground for holding that the students are guilty of mutual copying. In buttressing these submissions reliance was sought to be placed on the judgment of a Learned Single Judge in Shaikh Shafaque Anjum M. H. v. University of Mumbai, 1999(3) Mh LJ 1 = 7999 (3) All MR 335. In that case, the allegation was that two students had Mutually copied answers to two questions at the Pathology examination held for the M.B.B.S. Degree Course. The Learned Single Judge held that for one of the two questions the answers given were not identical and a mere perusal of the answer sheets revealed that although the answers were similar, they were not identical. The answers for the other question although similar, were not identical. The two students before the Court were closely related and it was their case that they had studied together. The students had also brought on record the fact that one of the questions was posed frequently at the University Examinations and had been posed on as many as nine different occasions. It was in this context that the Learned Single Judge observed that if the question was repeatedly asked, it was no wonder that the answers were stereotyped. The learned Single Judge was of the view that a mere similarity of the pattern of answers in the examination could not lead to the conclusion that the petitioners had resorted to copying. A similar view has been taken in judgments of the Allahabad High Court and the Patna High Court in Harish Chandra v. Board of H. S. and Intermediate Education, , and in Rakesh Kumar v. Union P.S. Commission, .
11. A similar question arose before the Supreme Court in Board of High School-and Intermediate Education, U. P. v. Bagleshwar, . The case before the Supreme Court involved an allegation that the student whose conduct was being enquired into was guilty of copying in that some of the answers were identical with those of another candidate and suffered from the same mistakes. The Board cancelled the result of both the students. The High Court set aside the imposition of penalty on the ground that the order of penalty was based upon no evidence. In appeal, Mr. Justice P. B. Ganjendragadkar, (as the learned Chief Justice then was) speaking for a Bench of three learned Judges of the Supreme Court held as follows :--
"The High Court was very much impressed by the fact that the respondent could not have looked back and copied from the answer-book of the other candidate, and the High Court did not think that there was any evidence to show that the other candidate could have copied from the respondent's paper with his connivance. We have looked at [he incorrect answers ourselves and we are not prepared to hold that the identical incorrect answers were given by the two candidates either by accident or by coincidence. Some of the incorrect answers, and particularly, the manner in which they have been given, clearly suggest that they were the result of either one candidate copying from the other or both candidates copying from a common source. The significance of this fact has been completely missed by the High Court. The question before the Enquiry Committee had to be decided by it in the light of the nature of the incorrect answers themselves, and that is what the Enquiry Committee has done. It would, we think, be inappropriate in such a case to require direct evidence to show that the respondent could have looked back and copied from the answer written by the other candidate who was sitting behind him. There was still the alternative possibility that the candidate sitting behind may have copied from the respondent with his connivance. It is also not unlikely that the two candidates may have talked to each other. The atmosphere prevailing in the Examination Hall does not rule out this possibility. These are all matters which the Enquiry Committee had to consider, and the fact that the Enquiry Committee did not write an elaborate report, does not mean that it did not consider all the relevant facts before it came to the conclusion that the respondent had used unfair means."
The judgment of the Supreme Court furnishes a clear answer to the contention which has been raised on behalf of the petitioners. But, apart from the decision of the Court on the facts which arose in that case, this decision is significant, in that it lays down the test which must guide the High Court in the exercise of its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution when dealing with cases of enquiries by the Universities and by educational bodies into the use of unfair means. In para 12 of its judgment, the Supreme Court held thus :--
"(12) In dealing with petitions of this type, it is necessary to bear in mind that educational institutions like the Universities or appellant No. 1 set up Enquiry Committees to deal with the problem posed by the adoption of unfair means by candidates, and normally it is within the jurisdiction of such domestic Tribunals to decide all relevant questions in the light of the evidence adduced before them. In the matter of the adoption of unfair means, direct evidence may sometimes be available, but cases may arise where direct evidence is not available and the question will have to be considered in the light of probabilities and circumstantial evidence. This problem which educational institutions have to face from time to time is a serious problem and unless there is justification to do so, Courts should be slow to interfere with the decisions of domestic Tribunals appointed by educational bodies like the Universities. In dealing with the validity of the impugned orders passed by Universities under Article 226, the High Court is not sitting in appeal over the decision in question; its jurisdiction is limited and though it is true that if the impugned order is not supported by any evidence at all, the High Court would be justified to quash that order. But the conclusion that the impugned order is not supported by any evidence must be reached after considering the question as to whether probabilities and circumstantial evidence do not justify the said conclusion. Enquiries held by domestic Tribunals in such cases must, no doubt, be fair and students against whom charges are framed must be given adequate opportunities to defend themselves, and in holding such enquiries, the Tribunal must scrupulously follow rules of natural justice; but it would, we think not be reasonable to import into these enquiries all considerations which govern criminal trial in ordinary Courts of law. In the present case no animus is suggested and no mala fides have been pleaded and the respondent has had an opportunity of making his defence. That being so, we think the High Court was not justified in interfering with the order passed against the respondent."
These observations of the Supreme Court are squarely attracted to the facts of this case.
12. In Rajesh Kuman v. Institute of Engineers , in June 1990 the two appellants appeared at the AMIE examination conducted by the Respondent. In October 1990, notices were received by 13 candidates including the appellants stating that their answers to some questions were identical and they were alleged to have indulged in unfair means. The appellants contended that the similarity of answers may have been due to the fact that they studied from the same text books. The Institute cancelled their results and barred them from two examinations. The students filed a civil suit for challenging the action and the decree passed by the Trial Court was reversed by the First Appellate Court. The High Court in a second appeal allowed the plea of the students that their answer books and other material had not been put to the students in the enquiry and consequently directed the Institute to redecide the matter after giving an opportunity to the students. On remand the Institute called upon a candidate to merely 'cram' or memorise a passage from a data book which he claimed to have studied to decide whether he would reproduce it exactly. The material which the High Court held ought to have been put to the students was kept aside. The Institute affirmed its order of penalty and the High Court then dismissed a Writ Petition of the appellants. In this context, the Supreme Court while allowing the appeal held that the Institute had conveniently disregarded all the observations of the High Court while remanding the matter. The Supreme Court held that if the Institute had come to grips with the material, the result would have gone in favour of the appellant. The Court then held thus:--
"Conveniently, other factors were brought in replacement to conquer the field inasmuch as the appellants were put to a cramming test, there and then in order to judge their capability of memory retention in a matter of minutes. All literate men have been students at a given point of time but all have not been crammers. Those who cram do not achieve their goal by a single reading. It is a ceaseless effort for days and days till the desired result is achieved. Crammers inter se do not have any nexus with each other. The text of a book as the common source for cramming establishes no connection. That per se cannot be evidence of any conspiracy between the crammers to adopt unfair means in the examination unless there be material to show that there was copying of the answer-books, descending from the answer-book of one of the candidates, or directly from the book leading to the copying by others. The overall consideration of the Institute reflected that its members thought that they would be put to an embarrassment if the plea of the two appellants were to be accepted and therefore, thought of declining relief to the appellants. Such result cannot be permitted to follow from the deliberation of the Institute, In the interest of fair play this Court would thus step in to give a corrective dose."
In the present case, the examination was not a test of memory. The students had to apply the data, formulae and properties provided in the data book to devise their own individual solutions. The questions required an analytical approach, a choice of appropriate parameters. Neither the examination, nor for that matter the enquiry tested the capacity to memorise. The answers were identical, but there was more. The assumptive statements, choice of data, selection of decimal places and even the mistakes were the same. The extent of the malpractice which ran over pages and pages could not have been possible without the complicity of both sets of students-those who copied and those who permitted the copying. The University is justified in submitting that those who permitted the copying were not unwitting victims. They were equally parties to the malpractice and the extent of the copying, given the nature of the questions of examination, could not have been possible without the complicity of all of them.
13. In the present case, there has been more than sufficient evidence before the authorities to come to the conclusion that the students involved have resorted to unfair means. The educational system will be susceptible to a danger of destruction if such episodes are not dealt with firmly. The probity and integrity of the system is at stake. Those who think straight, act fair and study hard must be vindicated by ensuring that unfair means do not pass muster. Again it must be emphasised that this was not the case of an examination involving conventional essay type questions where the students' ability to reproduce what he has memorized was being tested. Again it would also be necessary to emphasis that the nature of the questions which were posed involved an analytical approach on the part of the students, an approach where the student had a wide choice to make a selection of data and thereafter, after making suitable assumptions to answer questions related to Machine design. The answers are word for word similar in respect of the questions which formed the subject matter of the enquiry. But, the matter did not end there. The mistakes which were made were identical. The assumptive values which were utilised by the students were the same. My attention has been drawn to various mistakes which were committed by the students including the mistakes in reproducing the 'stresses', 'lead angles' and even in the references to the data book, besides the mistakes in diagram. The University has, therefore, not acted on the basis of conjecture or surmise. The order is founded on the material which is available on the record and is based on evidence. In a similar case, by an order dated 11th June, 2001 the Division Bench dismissed a set of two writ petitions holding that on a perusal of the answer papers, it was satisfied that the University authorities were right in coming to the conclusion that it was a case of mutual copying. Tushar v. State W. P. No. 1017 of 2001 and Mirza v. State W. P. No. 1036 of 2001 order dated 11-6-2001 per A. P. Shah and S. A. Bobade, JJ. The same would hold the field in the facts of the present case. Accordingly, there is no merit in these petitions. The University has exercised a considerable degree of restraint in imposing a penalty, one which is fairly lenient having regard to the gravity of the misconduct. The Writ Petitions are dismissed. There shall be no order as to costs.
14. Writ petitions dismissed.