Humanitarian grounds

Case BriefsHigh Courts

Patna High Court: Mohit Kumar Shah, J. refused to grant relief to petitioner on humanitarian grounds contrary to the law.

Petitioner, a student of Damyanti Devi Mahila College, Patna pursuing B.Sc. course filed a writ petition seeking direction to Magadh University to publish results pertaining to the B.Sc. Part-III (Hons.) Examination, 2018. The petitioner submitted that her college was affiliated to the Magadh University, and after getting admitted to the college, she had been allotted a registration number by the University. After appearing for the B.Sc. Part-III (Hons.) examination, it came to her notice that even though the results of all other colleges affiliated to the Magadh University had been published, the results pertaining to her college had not been declared. Hence, she has approached this Court to direct the university to declare the results.

The respondent, Magadh University, filed a counter-affidavit wherein it affirmed that the petitioner was a student of the College in question. However, the Learned Counsel for the respondent submitted that in pursuant to court orders and directions, the results of those colleges, not having affiliation from the State Government, shall not be published. Upon perusal of the official records, it was discovered that the petitioner’s college was unaffiliated, as far as B.Sc. (Hons.) The course is concerned. Hence, there was no publication of results. Learned counsel on behalf of the respondent, relied on the Supreme Court decision State of T.N. v. St. Joseph Teachers Training Institute, (1991) 3 SCC 87 wherein the Court had observed that any direction which permits the students to appear for the examinations without the institution being affiliated would amount to “clear transgression of the provision of the Act and the regulations.” It stated that the Court cannot be a party to direct the students to disobey the rule of law.

The Petitioner was unable to refute that the college was not affiliated to the University for the said courses and thus the Court held that it cannot issue any direction to the University, contrary to law, especially when the Apex Court had deprecated the practice of granting relief on humanitarian grounds.[Priya Kumari Singh v. State of Bihar, 2019 SCC OnLine Pat 631, decided on 07-05-2019]

Case BriefsHigh Courts

High Court of Bombay: Examining the aspects of prison punishment granted to  prisoners, the Division Bench  comprising of V.K. Tahilramani and  Mridula Bhatkar, JJ., held that the prison punishment could be reduced on humanitarian grounds in case the prisoner overstayed the period granted in furlough. Ruling in favour of  the petitioner, the Court reduced the punishment of a prisoner who,  overstayed the period of furlough leave granted to him, by 93 days, as his wife was not keeping well and had to undergo hysterectomy.
The petitioner was granted 14 days furlough leave pursuant to his application  and was released on March 20, 2004, however,the petitioner did  not present himself on time i.e. on April 4, 2004 before the jail authorities. Hence he was arrested and brought back to jail on July 7, 2004. In reply to the show-cause notice issued to the petitioner  requiring explanation for the over-stay, the petitioner submitted that his wife was sick and  required hysterectomy, hence he was unable to  surrender himself before the jail authorities on time. Thus prison punishment was imposed on the petitioner to forfeit his remission in the ratio of 1:5  i.e. for each day of overstay, 5 days of remission would be cut. The petitioner being aggrieved by the prison punishment contends it to be harsh and that it should be set aside.
The Court  held that the prison punishment ought to be reduced on account of humanitarian grounds in case the prisoner overstayed the period granted in furlough and thus on hearing the explanation submitted by the petitioner, reduced the prison punishment of the petitioner in the ratio of 1:3 i.e. for every day of overstay, 3 days of remission would be cut, instead of the original punishment  in the ratio of 1:5. [Takku Singh  v. State of Maharashtra,  2016 SCC OnLine Bom 8834, decided on September 22, 2016]