Forcing College Students To Travel To Remote Areas For Giving Exams Undermines Right To Education : Punjab & Haryana HC

The Punjab & Haryana High Court has said that requiring college students to travel long distances to remote areas to take exams creates unnecessary hardship and violates right to education under Article 21 of the constitution.

Justice Sureshwar Thakur and Justice Vikas Suri said, study and exam centers should be easy for students to reach, especially those studying online or through distance learning. Requiring these centers to be only at the main campus of the university—often far from students' homes—can cause serious stress and hardship. This rule can also place a heavy financial burden on students from poor or marginalized backgrounds.

It added further that "...constitutional right to education is snatched from the students through theirs being led to, in terms of the policy decision reach examination centres remotely located from their homes, therebys, the ire of the constitutional mandate rather purveying the right to education, thus would be attracted against such a policy stipulation."

The Court also issued certain guidelines for UGC to ensure standard of education including following:

"Verification(s) on a case to case basis henceforth is required to be made by the UGC, whether in fact the courses organized by the Deemed university(ies)/Private Institutions/State Universities are of the optimum academic standards. The said verification shall also entail a necessity that the UGC make audit verification(s) that the state of Art apparatus becomes established by the supra, for the said purpose, at their respective headquarters concerned."

The Court also said that It is also important to check whether the UGC has properly given valid approvals and recognitions to these universities through an audit.

These observations were made while hearing a batch of petitions with common questions fact and law. The Court took plea of Karamjeet Kaur's plea to decide the controversy. Kaur was appointed in 2012 as a Punjabi teacher on contract, she was denied regularization due to her M.Ed. degree from a distance mode (Vinayaka Mission University).

She filed a writ petition, through which the Court ordered her regularization from 02.04.2016 with all benefits, also addressed the validity of non-technical distance education degrees.

Later the Apex Court in Orissa Lift Irrigation Corp. Ltd V. Rabi Sankar Patro. [2017 (4) SCT 683: 2017 AIR (SC) 5179] issued certain directions relating to validity of degrees (non-technical) through distance mode, which included a cut-off date to validate the degree. 

The Court found that the State of Punjab failed to follow earlier directions to verify distance education degrees or create a portal for degree recognition. However, there is no evidence of fraud in the petitioners' degrees.

It said that, since no proof exists that the universities were unrecognized, the degrees remain valid. The only remaining issues concern whether study and exam centers outside university jurisdictions needed UGC approval. The Court also considered the validity of a cut-off date that derecognized certain degrees, especially since UGC did not oppose the petitioners' claims.

The bench further held that requiring UGC approval for study/exam centres outside a university's territorial limits contradicts the purpose of remote learning.

In the present case, it observed that there's no evidence of any violation or lack of UGC affiliation and forcing students to travel far for exams adds financial strain and limits access, especially for marginalized groups. The policy undermines the right to education.

The Court held that denying recognition to degrees from remote distance learning due to lack of UGC approval for off-site centres is arbitrary. Without proof of poor quality or misconduct, such restrictions violate the right to education and hinder career advancement. It opined that the recognition should be based on academic standards, not territorial limits or technicalities.

The bench quashed the that the cut-off dates which to de-recognized degrees earned through remote learning. Degrees remain valid, subject to verification.

Title: STATE OF PUNJAB AND ANOTHER Vs KARAMJEET KAUR

Click here to read/download the order