Delhi HC dismisses petition against CA Final Result Controversy

Milind Agarwal And Ors. Vs. ICAI (Delhi High Court)

The petitioners are students who, having appeared in the Chartered Accountants Final Examination conducted by the respondent in November 2017, are aggrieved by the result declared and published on its website by the respondent-institute wherein all of them have failed in their respective Groups. Vide the present petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioners have prayed for summoning of the records of the respondent including tabulations in the codified and de-codified form based on which the result of the aforesaid examination was sent to their Regional Council and branches of the institute.

The only case set up by the petitioners is that a notification was purportedly issued by the institute and sent to all its councils, centres, members/office bearers as per which the petitioners had allegedly passed. It is however, interesting to note that even though the entire case of the petitioners is based on the said alleged notification, in which they claimed to have passed, the petitioners have very conveniently and for obvious reasons stated in the petition itself that they were not sure about the authenticity and correctness of the e-mails or of the messages being circulated on the whatsapp and facebook.

The only plea raised by Khemka, learned counsel for the petitioners is that once the alleged notifications record that they are being published for General Informations the respondent-institute cannot deny that the said notifications were published.

In my considered opinion, merely because the alleged notification contains the term published for general information  cannot lead to the conclusion that the said notification was actually published especially in view of the categoric statement by the respondent-institute that the said alleged notification was never published in any manner. It may be pertinent to note that even the learned counsel for the petitioners is unable to demonstrate the manner in which the said alleged notification was published except for reiterating that the same circulated on whatsapp/facebook. I also find merit in the submission of Mr.Chandhiok, learned senior counsel for the respondent that once it is the own case of the petitioners that the said alleged notification was sent only to their branches, centres and members, it is evident that the same was merely an internal communication in which subsequently certain mismatches were noticed and, therefore, when the final result was declared. The mismatches, if any, were rectified and only the correct result was published on the websites of the Respondent-Institute at 5.37 pm. on 17.01.2018 i.e. much before the circulation of the whatsapp messages containing the alleged notification. The Respondent-Institute had only published the correct result and, therefore, no reliance can be placed on the alleged notification dated 17.01.2018 in which the petitioners claim to have been declared as successful. In view of the categoric stand of the Respondent-Institute that only one result was published and that too on the three websites of the Institute, it is evident that there has been no change of any kind in the result published by the institute and in these circumstances the provisions of Regulation 39(7) are not at all attracted as the said regulation would be applicable only where the result already published is subsequently sought to be amended in any manner. It is only in a case where the published result is sought to be altered or amended and the same adversely affects a candidate has to be given an opportunity of being heard. Once I am unable to find that there has been any amendment of the result and on the other hand it is crystal clear that the result was published only once on the website which result is the final result and there has been no attempt on the part of the respondent to alter the said result, there can be no question of the requirement to follow the procedure prescribed under Regulation 39(7).

Please become a Premium member. If you are already a Premium member, login here to access the full content.