Prince Jaibir Singh vs Union Of India Through Ministry Of ...
2021 Latest Caselaw 15723 Bom

                                                                            Judgement-WPL 26135-21.doc
KANCHAN
PRASHANT
DHURI                             IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY
                                      ORDINARY ORIGINAL CIVIL JURISDICTION
Digitally signed by
KANCHAN                                 WRIT PETITION (L) NO.26135 OF 2021
PRASHANT DHURI
Date: 2021.11.13
14:09:18 +0530
                      Prince Jaibir Singh
                      Age : 17 years, Occ. : Student,
                      Through guardian Mr. Jaibir Singh,
                      Residing at House No.523, Near Gali No.11,
                      Meerut Road, Bhatta Road, Ghookna More,
                      Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh - 201 001.                     ... Petitioner

                            Vs.

                      1. Union of India
                      Through Ministry of Education,
                      Department of Higher Education,
                      Having address at 127-C, Shastri Bhawan,
                      New Delhi-100 001.
                      Email id : [email protected]

                      2. Joint Seat Allocation Authority 2021
                      ( JoSAA 2021)
                      An authority set up by Ministry of
                      Education, Government of India,
                      IIT Kharagpur, Kharagpur - 721 302.
                      Email id : [email protected]

                      3. Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay
                      Having address at Adi Shankaracharya Marg,
                      Powai, Mumbai - 400 076.
                      Email id : [email protected]

                      4. National Informatics Centre
                      A-Block, Lodhi Road,
                      CGO Complex, New Delhi-110 003.
                      Email id : [email protected]                 ... Respondents


                                                                -----

                      Mugdha                                                              Page 1 of 14
                                                       Judgement-WPL 26135-21.doc


Ms. Jyoti Chavan for the Petitioner.
Mr. Rui Rodrigues with Mr. D.P. Singh for Respondent No.1.
Mr. Rui Rodrigues with Mr. Arjun Mitra for Respondents No.2 & 3.
Mr. Jagdish Chailkar, representative of NIC present.
                                        -----

                                  CORAM : S.J. KATHAWALLA &
                                           ABHAY AHUJA, JJ.
                                  DATE : 12TH NOVEMBER, 2021
                                        (VACATION COURT)
JUDGMENT (PER COURT) :

1            Rule.

             Rule made returnable forthwith.

             By consent of counsel for the parties heard finally.


2            By this Petition, the Petitioner is seeking order and direction of this

Court to the Respondents to permit Petitioner to pay the Seat Acceptance Fees

and participate in the admission process and to admit the Petitioner to the seat

allotted at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay for Civil Engineering

(4 years, Bachelor of Technology) or to any other seat that may be available in any

of the Institutes of Technology preferably at Mumbai or Delhi, in any of the

stream.

3 Petitioner is a student belonging to the scheduled caste category,

who has passed the Joint Entrance Examination ( JEE) Advanced 2021 and has

Judgement-WPL 26135-21.doc

scored All India Rank (CRL) 25894 and Scheduled Caste (SC) Rank 864 and was

allotted seat at the IIT, Bombay for Civil Engineering (4 years, Bachelor of

Technology) (B.Tech. Course).

4 It is the case of the Petitioner that pursuant to the Business Rules

XVIII Clause 40 for Joint Seat Allocation for the Academic Programs offered by

IITs, NITs, IIEST, IIITs and other GFTIs for the academic year 2021-22 issued

pursuant to a brochure dated 15/10/2021, Petitioner followed the steps

mentioned therein. He firstly accepted the seat under the 'Slide' option for the

said academic program and then as step 2 uploaded the required documents as

per Annexure-3 on the Joint Seat Allocation Authority ( JoSAA) portal on

29/10/2021. However, he could not make payment of the Seat Acceptance Fees

on 29/10/2021 as Petitioner was falling short of money. Thereafter on

30/10/2021 after his sister transferred money into his account, he first attempted

to make the payment by online mode at 9.51 p.m. and again at 9.58 p.m. and

thereafter again on 31/10/2021 at 11.44 a.m. However, during all these attempts

to make the payment, he received a message 'sorry, unable to process request.

Please try later' and/or 'the specific request cannot be processed' and another

message was 'invalid server access'. It is submitted that though Petitioner was

making continuous attempts to make the payment of the said fees, Petitioner was

Judgement-WPL 26135-21.doc

unable to make the said payment due to technical error and server error. In

support of his case, the Petitioner has annexed screenshots and access history to

the petition.

5 Petitioner states that he tried to make the Seat Acceptance Fees

from 9.51 p.m. on 30/10/2021 and also continued his attempts to make the said

payment by visiting Cyber Cafe on 31/10/2021, but he was unsuccessful in doing

so. The Petitioner thereafter started contacting JoSAA - Respondent No. 2

through telephone but his calls went unanswered. He addressed email to the

Respondent No. 2 requesting for redressal of his grievance (as provided in Rule 77

of Rules of Business) but did not receive any response. The Petitioner submits

that thereafter he has physically visited Respondent No. 2 on 1 st November, 2021

in the morning at 09.00 a.m. and requested the officials to accept the Seat

Acceptance Fees in any other alternate manner and permit the Petitioner to

participate in the admission process, however, the officials of Respondent No.2

expressed their inability to help the Petitioner.

6 Thereafter, Petitioner has contacted his lawyer in Mumbai and has

filed this Petition.

7 Petitioner submits that the admission counselling process is still in

progress and Round 4 is going on and there are a total of 6 rounds. He submits

Judgement-WPL 26135-21.doc

that he is a meritorious student, who has been allotted a seat at the prestigious

IIT, Bombay for a B.Tech. Course in Civil Engineering and urges this Court to

intervene in the matter in the interests of justice.

8 Learned counsel for Petitioner Ms. Jyoti Chavan, relies upon the

orders dated 09/12/2020 and 06/01/2021 of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the

case of Siddhanth Batra Vs. Director, IIT Bombay & Ors. (Civil Appeal No.4029

of 2020) to submit that in the case of an inadvertent error in withdrawing from

the admission, the Supreme Court regularised the admission of the Appellant

therein, who had earlier frozen his seat according to the Rules, but had

inadvertently withdrawn under an impression that he had already got the seat in

question. She therefore urges that this Court also take a sympathetic view in the

facts and circumstances of the Petitioner as stated in the Petition and issue

directions to the Respondents to accept the Seat Acceptance Fees and admit the

Petitioner to the B.Tech. Civil Engineering Course at IIT, Bombay or at any other

institute where a seat may be available.

9 When this matter was first listed before this Court on 11/11/2021,

this Court passed the following order :-

1. National Informatics Centre (NIC) is allowed to be joined as party Respondent No.4. Amendments to be carried out forthwith. Reverification is dispensed with.

Judgement-WPL 26135-21.doc

2. NIC shall appear before this Court on 12th November, 2021 at 02.30 pm.

3. State Bank of India (SBI) shall give assistance or information from their end to the NIC, if they need.

4. Stand over to 12th November, 2021 at 2.30 p.m.

10 Today, when the matter is called out, the newly added respondent,

viz., National Informatics Centre (NIC) is also represented. Respondents No.2

and 3 have also filed their affidavit-in-reply.

11 Mr. Rui Rodrigues along with Mr. Arjun Mitra and Mr. D.P. Singh,

learned counsel for Respondents drew our attention to the JoSSA Rules of

Business and submitted that seats in the IITs and the NIT+ system are offered

jointly through a common process conducted by Respondent No.2 - JoSAA and

the successful candidates are offered a seat on the basis of their rank in the

entrance examination and their order of choice of course and Institute in

accordance with the JoSAA Business Rules, which are binding on all concerned.

12 It is submitted that the schedule of events of JoSAA, which forms

part of the Business Rules, informs the candidates on the timelines involved for

each activity, which are applied to all without exception. The entire process is

carried out through NIC which is completely computerized and there is no

Judgement-WPL 26135-21.doc

element of human intervention in the Seat Allocation Process, apart from the

document verification stage.

13 The Schedule provides for two rounds of mock seat allocation

which is a trial to give the candidate a fair idea of his relative standing in the merit

list and possibility of getting a preferred seat. There are six rounds of seat

allocation for the IITs. During the seat allocation, a candidate is provisionally

offered a seat on the basis of rank and preference which remains provisional until

all the steps for confirming it are fulfilled. Rule 40 of the Business Rules lays down

four steps required to be carried out for a provisionally allocated seat to be

accepted and the non-compliance or non-fulfillment of these steps is treated as

rejection of the offered seat. The implication of rejecting or withdrawing the

allocated seat is provided in Rule 69, i.e., the candidate if otherwise eligible, may

appear again for JEE (Advance) in the next year. If the candidate does not reject

the seat/withdraw from the seat within the time stipulated, he is ineligible to

appear again as per Rule 70.

14 In this view of the matter, it is submitted by Learned Counsel on

behalf of the Respondents that the non-payment of the Seat Acceptance Fee

implies a rejection of the offered seat by the candidate and that the said candidate

is no longer able to participate in the Seat Allocation Process. Learned counsel for

Judgement-WPL 26135-21.doc

Respondents has taken us through the aforesaid Rules.

15 Learned counsel has also taken us through the response email from

SBI dated 11/11/2021 annexed to the Affidavit which confirms the attempts to

make payment of Seat Allocation Fee by the Petitioner on 30 th and 31st October,

2021. Learned counsel submits that since the last date of Seat Acceptance Fee

payment was 31/10/2021 till 12.00 noon and since no such payment had been

received by the said date and time, it amounts to the Petitioner having rejected

the offered seat, and his seat is automatically allotted to the next deserving

candidate.

16 Learned counsel for the Respondents further submits that on

27/10/2021 and on 31/10/2021 a total of 45860 candidates had paid the Seat

Acceptance Fee successfully.

17 He further submits that with respect to the availability of vacant

seats as of now, there are no available seats at IIT, Bombay, all of which have been

offered, allocated and accepted. That though it is possible that some seats may

become available at the end of the 4 th or the 5th round, in case someone withdraws,

however, since the allocation is completely computerized, the vacant seats, if any,

will be allocated strictly in accordance with the Business Rules to the next

Judgement-WPL 26135-21.doc

deserving candidate, who has paid Seat Acceptance Fees. He submits that the

Petitioner having already rejected his seat on account of non-payment of Seat

Acceptance Fee is out of the JoSAA process.

18 Learned counsel for the Respondents submits that the Rules of

Business, being formulated by the competent authority, are binding on all

concerned and in view of the law settled by the Supreme Court, this Court cannot

be generous or liberal in issuing directions which in substance would amount to

directing the concerned authorities to violate their own rules and regulations and

therefore no mandamus can be issued to the Respondents to act contrary to their

own procedure. He relies upon the following two decisions in support of his

contention :-

(i) Maharshi Dayanand University Vs. Surjeet Kaur (2010) 11 SCC 159

(ii) Pallavi Sharma Vs. College of Vocational Studies & Anr. 2015 SCC OnLine Del 10249

19 We have heard learned counsel for the parties and with their able

assistance perused the papers and proceedings in the matter.

20 The facts stated above are not in dispute. The Petitioner indeed

appears to be a meritorious student having secured 864 th rank in the scheduled

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caste category and being allotted a seat at the prestigious IIT, Bombay for a

B.Tech course in Civil Engineering. After successfully completing Step 1 by

opting for the 'Slide' option and step 2 of uploading the documents on

29/10/2021, he began attempting to make payment towards Seat Acceptance

Fees through the 2nd Respondent's portal for continuing with the JoSAA process

on 30th October, 2021 at 9.51 p.m. (i.e. after receiving the amount of Rs.15,000/-

from his sister on 30th October, 2021), but due to a technical error appearing to be

at the end of his card issuing bank,viz., State Bank of India failed to make the

payment as per the Rules, thereby facing the rejection under the Business Rules.

21 We have taken a look at the e-mail response of State Bank of India

dated 11/11/2021 which is annexed to the reply and which indicates the reason of

failure for the three attempts made by Petitioner to make payment as 'no response

received from CARD Issuing Bank ACS', and the process code showing 'Auth

Error'.

22 However, a perusal of the Rules of Business and in particular Rule

77 at Page 93 of the Petition indicates that there is a grievance redressal

mechanism set out therein, which provides that in case of any grievance with

respect to the JoSAA process, pertaining to IITs, the e-mail contact is

[email protected], further providing that the decision(s) by the

Judgement-WPL 26135-21.doc

concerned authorities with regard to such grievances shall be final. The

concerned authority for IITs is the Chairman, JAB 2021.

23 Upon a query from the Court as to whether petitioner had availed of

the aforementioned Grievance Redressal mechanism, learned counsel for

petitioner drew our attention to Exhibit-J at Page 133 of the Petition to submit that

Petitioner did make the grievance at the aforementioned e-mail id regarding the

fee payment, but fairly states that the said e-mail was sent by the Petitioner only

after 12.00 noon on 31/10/2021, by which time the activity for the said process

had closed.

24 The Petitioner has admitted before us that the site of JoSAA set up

by the Ministry of Education, Government of India, IIT, Kharagpur, throughout

showed that the candidates will be able to access the said process only upto 12.00

noon on 31/10/2021. As set out hereinabove, the Petitioner was also aware of

Rule 77 at page 93 of the Petition, which indicates that there is a grievance

redressal mechanism available to the candidates in case of any grievance with

respect of JoSAA process. It is obvious that the grievance redressal mechanism

could be resorted to only upto 12.00 noon of 31/10/2021 when the activity in the

said process was to be closed and was in fact closed. The Petitioner despite

having failed to make on-line payment right since 9.51 p.m. on 30/10/2021 upto

Judgement-WPL 26135-21.doc

11.44 a.m. on 31/10/2021 ought to have sought help by registering his grievance

as provided in Rule 77 before the activity in the said process was to close i.e.

before 12.00 noon on 31st October, 2021. The Petitioner did not register his

grievance with regard to his failure to make payment by on-line mode before 12.00

noon but instead registered his grievance on 31/10/2021 after 12.00 noon i.e. after

the entire activity / process was finally closed / shut. The Petitioner having failed

to follow the rules despite being aware of the same now cannot be heard to say

that he be allowed to continue his admission and be allowed to make payment of

the Seat Acceptance Fee or that he be allotted another seat after the closure of the

process of admission as provided for in the Rules. The said Rules are binding on

all the participants as the candidates have entered the process by submitting to

the said Rules. Though, we are aware that computerization/digitization is not to

harass the citizens, but to assist them in going about their activities in a more

efficient, convenient and hassle free manner, the Petitioner by not availing of the

Grievance Redressal in time, as provided for in the Rules, has entailed the

consequence of rejection from the process and has been unfortunately ousted

from the process.

25 It is trite that the Rules of business being formulated by the

competent authority, in this case JoSAA, are binding on the petitioner. This

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Court is also fully conscious of the principle highlighted by the Supreme Court in

the case of Maharashi Dayanand University (Supra) and followed by the Delhi

High Court in the case of Pallavi Sharma (Supra) that a direction of this Court

cannot result in an authority violating its own rules and regulations. We therefore

cannot and are not issuing any such directions. True also that Petitioner is a poor

but meritorious student having secured a merit rank in the JEE Advance and a

seat for B.Tech (Civil) course at the prestigious IIT Bombay and we fully

sympathise with his situation. However, in view of what we have discussed and

observed above we find it difficult to issue any directions to the Respondents as

prayed for in this Petition or otherwise.

26 As far as Petitioner's reliance on the orders of the Hon'ble Supreme

Court in the case of Siddhanth Batra Vs. Director, IIT Bombay & Ors. (supra) is

concerned, we note that the said orders have been passed by the Supreme Court

under Article 142 of the Constitution of India, with a rider making it abundantly

clear that the said order will not be cited as a precedent to open other cases. We

are afraid that we are not invested with these powers as those are within the sole

domain and discretion of the Hon'ble Supreme Court.

28 Petition is, therefore, dismissed. Rule stands discharged.

                                                    Judgement-WPL 26135-21.doc


29         No order as to costs.


30         All to act on an authenticated copy of this judgment/order.



( ABHAY AHUJA, J.)                           (S.J. KATHAWALLA, J.)