Delhi High Court
Vinayak Dalmia vs University Of Delhi & Ors. on 20 May, 2011
Author: Kailash Gambhir
IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
+ W.P.(C) No. 3403/2011
% Judgment delivered on: 20th May, 2011
Vinayak Dalmia ...... Petitioner.
Through: Mr. S.K.Dubey, Adv.
versus
University of Delhi & Ors. ..... Respondents
Through: Mr. MJS Rupal, Adv.
CORAM:
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE KAILASH GAMBHIR
1. Whether the Reporters of local papers may
be allowed to see the judgment? N.A
2. To be referred to Reporter or not? N.A
3. Whether the judgment should be reported
in the Digest? N.A
KAILASH GAMBHIR, J. Oral
*
W.P.(C) No. 3403/2011
By this petition filed under Article 226 of the
Constitution of India, the petitioner seeks directions to direct
the respondents to re-schedule the date of LLB Entrance
Examination of Delhi University from 12.6.2011 to some
other convenient date.
Brief facts as set out in the present petition are
that the petitioner who is an Indian citizen and a graduate
and M.Phil from Cambridge University wishes to take the
LLB Entrance Test scheduled for 12.6.2011 and also wishes
to appear for the preliminary examination of Civil Services,
2011, scheduled for the same date i.e. 12.6.2011.
It has been stated that on 19.2.2011 the UPSC
had issued an advertisement inviting applications of eligible
candidates and fixed the date of its preliminary examination
as 12.6. 20011. The petitioner submitted his application on
21.2.2011 to appear in the said examination but he is
wanting to pursue academic professional course of Law
also. It is further submitted that the petitioner had made a
representation dated 19.4.2011 to the Vice Chancellor,
University of Delhi, requesting him to change the date of
entrance test for LLB entrance exam as otherwise a large
number of students would have their hands tied down and
they will be forced to make a choice to appear in one of the
exams, but the same was however rejected.
Mr. Dubey, counsel for the petitioner has
vehemently submitted that the right to education
is a fundamental right of the petitioner, of which he cannot
be deprived of. Counsel thus further states that the fixing of
dates for the exams is in the realm of the administration and
the administrative convenience of the respondents cannot
come in the way of the petitioner to deprive him from
appearing in the civil service exams. In support of his
arguments, Mr. Dubey has placed reliance on the judgment
of the Apex court in Avinash Mehrotra Vs. Union of India
& Ors. (2009) 6 SCC 398 with special emphasis on the
following paras:
"23. The Kothari Commission on Education set up by the Government
of India in 1966 strongly recommended free and compulsory education
for children up to 14 years. The Commission observed that there is no
other way for the poor to climb their way out of this predicament.
24. Education occupies a sacred place within our Constitution and
culture. Article 21A of the Constitution, adopted in 2002, codified this
Court's holding in Unni Krishnan, J.P. and Ors. v. State of Andhra
Pradesh and Ors. : [1993]1SCR594 , in which we established a right
to education. Parliament did not merely affirm that right; the Amending
Act placed the right to education within the Constitution's set of
Fundamental Rights, the most cherished principles of our society. As
the Court observed in Unni Krishnan (supra), para 8:
The immortal Poet Valluvar whose Tirukkural will surpass all ages and
transcend all religious said of education:
Learning is excellence of wealth that none destroy; To man nought else
affords reality of joy.
25. Education today remains liberation - a tool for the betterment of
our civil institutions, the protection of our civil liberties, and the path to
an informed and questioning citizenry.
26. Then as now, we recognize education's "transcendental importance"
in the lives of individuals and in the very survival of our Constitution
and Republic. In the years since the inclusion of Article 21A, we have
clarified that the right to education attaches to the individual as an
inalienable human right. We have traced the broad scope of this right in
R.D. Upadhyay v. State of A.P. and Ors. : AIR2006SC1946 ,
holding that the State must provide education to all children in all
places, even in prisons, to the children of prisoners. We have also
affirmed the inviolability of the right to education. In Election
Commission of India v. St. Mary's School and Ors. :
AIR2008SC655 , we refused to allow the State to take teachers from
the classroom to work in polling places. While the democratic State has
a mandate to conduct elections, the mundane demands of instruction
superseded the State's need to staff polling places. Indeed, the
democratic State may never reach its greatest potential without a
citizenry sufficiently educated to understand civil rights and social
duties, Bandhua Mukti Morcha v. Union of India and Ors. :
[1997]2SCR379 . These conclusions all follow from our opinion in Unni
Krishnan. Education remains essential to the life of the individual, as
much as health and dignity, and the State must provide it,
comprehensively and completely, in order to satisfy its highest duty to
citizens.
27. Unlike other fundamental rights, the right to education places a
burden not only on the State, but also on the parent or guardian of
every child, and on the child herself. Article 21A, which reads as
follows, places one obligation primarily on the State:
The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of
the age of six to fourteen years in such manner as the State may, by
law, determine.
28. By contrast, Article 51A(k), which reads as follows, places burden
squarely on the parents:
Fundamental duties - it shall be the duty of every citizen of India who is
the parent or guardian to provide opportunities for education to his
child or, as the case may be, ward between the age of six and fourteen
years.
29. The Constitution directs both burdens to achieve one end: the
compulsory education of children, free from the fetters of cost, parental
obstruction, or State inaction. The two articles also balance the relative
burdens on parents and the State. Parents sacrifice for the education of
their children, by sending them to school for hours of the day, but only
with a commensurate sacrifice of the State's resources. The right to
education, then, is more than a human or fundamental right. It is a
reciprocal agreement between the State and the family, and it places
an affirmative burden on all participants in our civil society.
30. This Court has routinely held that another fundamental right to life
encompasses more than a breath and a heartbeat. In reflecting on the
meaning of "personal liberty" in Articles 19 and 21, we have held that
"that `personal liberty' is used in the article as a compendious term to
include within itself all the varieties of rights which go to makeup the
`personal liberties' of man." Kharak Singh v. State of U.P. and Ors.
: 1963CriLJ329 . Similarly, we must hold that educating a child requires
more than a teacher and a blackboard, or a classroom and a book. The
right to education requires that a child study in a quality school, and a
quality school certainly should pose no threat to a child's safety. We
reached a similar conclusion, on the comprehensive guarantees implicit
in the right to education, only recently in our opinion in Ashoka Kumar
Thakur v. Union of India and Ors. : (2008)6SCC1"
On the other hand, Mr. Rupal , learned counsel
appearing for the respondent submits that it is for a student
to decide whether he intends to pursue an academic
professional course or opt for employment. He further states
that if the petitioner considers himself to be meritorious
enough to appear in the civil service exams, then he would be
only blocking the seat of LLB Course.
I have heard learned counsel for the parties.
It is a matter of fact that there are hundreds of
important entrance examinations which take place during
these days and the students have various choices before
them to opt for the specialized courses or even to opt for
employment through competitive exams. This court may
also take judicious notice that usually these exams are
fixed on Sundays and public holidays as a matter of
convenience. However, there is no centralized agency which
fixes these exams for all the academic professional courses
and even for the appointments or monitors that various
exams are not scheduled on the same date . It is a matter of
common knowledge that the students of different streams
come to take the LLB entrance examination and it is possible
that when opting to pursue such other professional or
academic courses, they may get deprived and loose the
opportunity to appear in many other competitive exams
because of clash of dates such as the civil services
examinations. There is no dispute with the legal position
canvassed by counsel for the petitioner that every citizen has
a right to education and cannot be deprived of it but that
cannot be construed so as to indulge the courts in declaring
one exam important than the other and it is thus dangerous if
the courts start interfering to upset the schedule fixed by the
University and other public authorities for various
competitive examinations. It is thus for the petitioner to
prioritize and choose whether he intends to pursue the
academic professional course or to appear in the civil service
exams.
I, therefore, do not find any merit in the present
writ petition and the same is accordingly dismissed.
May 20, 2011 KAILASH GAMBHIR, J
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