1. ' By this writ petition, Raja Naeem, a student of F. Sc. (Pre-Medical Group) has come to this Court questioning the Notification No, Board/ 4532-52/77 dated 17th July, 1977 issued by the Secretary of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Board of Intermediate & Secondary Education, Mirpur (hereinafter called the Board). By this Notification, the Secondary School Certificate obtained by the petitioner pertaining to the Spring examination taken by him in the year 1975 was quashed. On the basis of the said certificate obtained by the petitioner, he was admitted to 11th Class and it was after the completion of his F. Sc. Course when he was about to take the examination that his result of Secondary School Certificate Examination was cancelled by the Board. It is alleged that no show- cause notice was issued to the petitioner before the quashment of his result and so he was condemned unheard. Furthermore, it was without jurisdiction that his certificate duly obtained by him was declared as cancelled.
2. ' The counter allegation of the Board is that the petitioner failed in his examination as one of the papers, namely, Pakistan Studies, could not be cleared up by him but it was somehow managed by him that figure zero (0) was suffixed to figure 6, marks actually obtained by him so as to bring their number to pass-marks figuring 60 instead of 6 actually obtained by him and this was an abetment on his part for the commission of an offence of tampering with the record of the Board. It was admitted by the respondents that no show-cause notice was issued to the petitioner for quashment of his result. It was also admitted on behalf of the respondents that the subject of Pakistan Studies was not a compulsory subject for the petitioner to pass but failure in the subject brings him down to the level of a third divisional instead of a second divisional and for doing so he arranged change in the marks obtained in the result-card and subsequently in the Certificate issued to him on basis of that result. Card. A certified copy of Award-list prepared by the Examiner of the paper of Pakistan Studies was produced to show that the petitioner was awarded only 6 marks in this paper whereas 60 marks were wrongly entered in the result-card and the subsequent Certificate issued to him by the Controller of Examinations and his staff, vide certificates Annexures 'A', '13'. 'C' & 'D' under Roll No, 3058. The relevant paper is not forthcoming as it appears to have been destroyed by the authority concerned. In the above circumstances, this case is a simple one for its determination only on points of law, and so I need not go into other details.
3. Under rule 5.18 of Board's Calendar amended upto 1st April, 1972, when the Board desires to quash the result of a candidate on some grounds A after it has been declared, a show-cause notice is necessarily to be issued to him for providing him an opportunity to defend himself and it can be done by the Board till the expiry of a period of four years from the date of declaration of the 'result of the examination concerned. This is a mandatory provision of law the contravention of which renders the act of the authority contemplated therein illegal. Here in this case, the result of the petitioner was admittedly quashed without issuing a show-cause notice to him and without giving him an opportunity of defending himself. Therefore, for this very reason the impugned Notification made by the respondents in respect of the result of the petitioner is illegal and void and so the pass-result of the petitioner stands intact.
4. ' Besides, the candidate was never failing in the examination in sense it requires a candidate to pass the same. In all the compulsory subjects, he got through and by all means he was to be declared a successful candidate though in third division and so this is not a case of failure of a candidate in the examination to qualify it for obtaining a Secondary School Certificate. In this case the Board ought to have proceeded against his employees under rules and law who were responsible for change in the marks obtained by the petitioner in the subject of Pakistan Studies which occurrence proved helpful to the petitioner so as to be placed in second division instead of third division actually obtained by him. The petitioner had been studying for two long years in F. Sc.
5. Classes and he has also taken his examination thereof. Therefore, it will be in the interest of both the Board as well as the petitioner that the latter's status as a 'pass candidate' in relation to Secondary School Certificate Examination, as a rule, shall not be deemed to have been disturbed by the Board in any case and his result of Intermediate Examination taken by him is announced accordingly.
6. ' Thus, this writ petition stands accepted in the manner indicated above. The impugned Notification concerning the quashment of the result of the petitioner is held illegal and without a lawful authority and as such is of no legal consequence with the result that the Secondary School Certificate issued to the petitioner by the Board stands recognized. However, the question of division secured by the petitioner can be looked into by the Board in accordance with the rules if it so desires.