Bombay High Court: The Division Bench of Bharati H. Dangre and S.C. Dharmadhikari, JJ., addressed a petition concerning the cancellation of an MBA degree holder of NMIMS, Mumbai, on grounds of attaining the admission through fraudulent means. The Bench also explained the principle of ‘Natural Justice’ on the lines of the present case.
In the instant case, the petitioner-aggrieved had attained a degree of MBA (Pharmaceutical Management) by following the due process of selection. The petitioner was working at a company in which he got placed through the college itself after completing the course. After a lapse of 3 years on completion of the degree, a show cause notice in regard of cancellation of the degree was sent stating that the petitioner had secured the admission through unfair means for which a complaint was filed by Respondent-1: NMIMS with the Crime Branch, Mumbai
It has been alleged that the petitioner engaged a ‘dummy candidate’ to appear on his behalf for the stated entrance test. Petitioner also contended that he was not supplied with the documents on which the show cause notice was relied upon which clearly did not give the petitioner an opportunity to deal with the documents which further if resulted into the cancellation of his degree would amount to the violation of principles of natural justice.
On complete analysis of the facts and contentions of the present case, the Hon’ble High Court concluded by stating that although the fraud was detected and a show cause notice was served to the petitioner, no material was supplied to deal with the allegations. One of the prominent observations made was that, the institute was a State recognised institute and any of its administrative decisions or actions resulting into civil consequences are liable to be judicially reviewed on the anvil of principles of natural justice, therefore, in the present case the impugned order was rendered as null and void due to violation of principles of natural justice. [Shiva Dhawan v. SVKM’s Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, 2018 SCC OnLine Bom 1272, order decided on 20-06-2018]
