ZAFFAR HUSSAIN MIRZA, J.--This appeal by special leave arises out of the judgment and order of Lahore High Court at Lahore, dated 26-2-1984, accepting the constitutional petition and declaring the order of the Disciplinary Committee, Unfair Means Cases, University of the Punjab, to be without lawful authority and of no legal effect.
2. Respondent Muhammad Zahur Nasir, having appeared and failed at 'the LL. B. , annual examination, held in 1980, appeared at the supplementary examination held in June 1981, only in respect of Paper Ill which he had failed to clear in the annual examination. During the scrutiny of the results, it was revealed that although in the award-list, the respondent was shown to have secured 14 marks in Paper 111, in the result 45 marks were posted against his name. On the detection of this fabrication, disciplinary action was initiated against the respondent and eventually a charge-sheet/show-cause notice dated 5-9-1982, was issued 'to him. After the respondent filed his reply, he was heard in person by the Disciplinary Committee, which by their decision dated 21-10-1982, held him guilty of having "hatched conspiracy with the concerned Tabulators and made deliberate previous arrangements to cheat in the examination by way of getting his result forged for his benefit". Having thus found him guilty of serious misconduct the respondent was disqualified for three years under Regulation 14 of the Regulations relating to the conduct of examinations. The respondent filed a representation before the Vice-Chancellor, who remanded the case to the Committee for reconsideration but the latter maintained their decision already given. However, the Chancellor of the University, on the respondent's petition, revised the order of the Committee and modified the disqualification period from 3 to 2 years.
3. Feeling aggrieved the respondent called in question the order of the Disciplinary Committee dated 21-10-1982, in a constitutional petition before the Lahore High Court, which was accepted as stated hereinbefore.
4. The Vice-Chancellor, University of the Punjab and others, appellants herein, then came up before this Court seeking to challenge the judgment of the High Court and leave was granted to examine the contention that the validity of the finding of the University Authorities, exercising parental authority over their students, is not to be reviewed by a judicial forum on the same norms, on which the findings of a judicial or quasi-judicial authority are liable to be scrutinized and hence, since the respondent was the beneficiary of the tampering of records, a presumption of guilt was raised which was by itself sufficient to establish his guilt, because it was not possible to produce direct evidence to prove that the tampering was done at his behest.
5. In support of the appeal, Ch. Muhammad Farooq urged that the High Court, contrary to the law laid down by this Court, reopened the finding of fact which lay within the exclusive domain of the University Authorities. He took exception to the manner in which the High Court approached the case, as in his submission the law declared by this Court clearly lays down that the Evidence Act and the rules laid down therein are not attracted to such proceedings. Referring to some decision: of this Court, which will be examined hereinafter, he urged that the proposition is well-accepted that a presumption of guilt would arise in case a candidate's marks are wrongly inflated in the result sheet to his benefit, that the forgery and manipulation was made at the behest of the candidate. He asserted that in such cases there would ordinarily be, in the very nature of things no direct evidence available with the authority to link the candidate with the commission of the offence.
6. Now the charge-sheet served on the respondent alleged that he had "made deliberate previous arrangements to cheat in the examination by way of getting your result forged with the connivance of the University Staff in order to get through the examination". The respondent denied the charge and asserted that he had not approached any one in the examination department to get any illegal help. During the course of the enquiry proceedings before the Disciplinary Committee, the respondent requested that the staff allegedly involved in the forgery be summoned to confront him, but his request went unheeded. His grievance before the Disciplinary Committee was that the person with whom he is alleged to have been in league be named and his identity be disclosed. Nevertheless without attempting to do so the Committee proceeded to determine the guilt of the respondent on the assumption that since he was the beneficiary of the variation in the result sheet in regard to his marks, he was an accomplice in the offending at. This is clear from the following excerpt from the report of the Committee dated 21-10-1982: "It was noted that although it has been clearly mentioned on the original Award List that the candidate has obtained 14 marks yet 45 marks have been posted against his Roll No. On the Result-sheet, which clearly indicates the mala fide intention on the parts of the Tabulators to benefit the candidate. The mere fact that the award of the candidate in Paper III has been enhanced on the Result-sheet by 31 marks to his advantage is sufficient to prove the charge levelled against him. Since the circumstances of the case are compatible with the guilt of the accused candidate, he cannot be given the advantage of any doubt. The Committee was of the firm view that the charges against the candidate have been fully established beyond doubt because the very Result-sheet manifests his guilt.
The Committee after considering the case from various aspects was fully convinced that the candidate' had hatched conspiracy with the concerned Tabulators and made deliberate previous arrangements to cheat in the examination by way of getting his result forged for his benefit."
In its report dated 31-1-1983, after the remand and reconsideration, the Committee reiterated their view as follows:- "Foreseeing a probable adverse eventuality that could have resulted in psycological frustration for the accused, he must have prior connivance with the official concerned for illegal enrichment in marks. It is a fact that the accused's result on the Result-sheet has been fabricated and tampered with to his advantage in a glaring manner to show him passed in the examination whereas in reality he has badly failed in Paper III. The fabrication and forgery in the official record does establish the mens rea on the part of the accused and the clerk involved in committing an illegal at knowing it fully well that it was not only morally wrong but also an offence against the laws of the University and those of the land as well."
7. After a laborious review of the case law bearing on the scope of the rule of natural justice to which the domestic forums are required to adhere, particularly with reference to educational institutions, the High Court summarised its conclusions in the following manner:- "The above analysis of the facts and the rule laid down by the Supreme Court in the cases cited by the learned counsel for the respondents would lead to the inevitable inference that the criteria set down by the Supreme Court in Zakir Ahmad's case judging the fairness of the opportunity given to a person before condemning him remain unchanged and have been consistently accepted as norms for determining whether a person has been given fair opportunity of defence and whether there has been compliance of the principles of natural justice in his case. The authorities responsible for taking disciplinary action are supposed to at on some material spelling out guilt of the person before proceeding to condemn and punish him and as minimum require--ments of fairness he should be given reasonable opportunity to make any relevant statement putting forward his case and should be able through such statement to correct or controvert any relevant statement brought to his prejudice. It is regrettable to note that in the instant case despite the fact that the petitioner had all along insisted that the Disciplinary Committee should specify or name the person with whom he was alleged to be in league the Committee did not provide him with the desired information although inquiry had already been initiated against the University staff (which inquiry has ended in holding Malik Tahfeef to be guilty of the commission of mischief) and the Committee would certainly be aware of the members of the staff involved in the inquiry and thus reduced him to a position from where he was not able to controvert the presumption that the Committee had raised against him. In these circumstances the petitioner could not be said to have been given fair opportunity to defend himself. The principles of natural justice could not be said to have been fully met in his case before condemning him. Again as the perusal of the impugned order of the Committee disclosed it considered the mere fact of enhancing of marks in the result sheet to be sufficient to draw inference against the petitioner that he was responsible for getting the inflated marks entered in the result sheet. Such an inference just on the basis of the entry in the result sheet was hardly justifiable."
8. After giving careful consideration to the arguments advanced we regret our inability to find any substance in them. In University of Dacca and another v. Zakir Ahmad PLD 1965 SC 90, this Court laid down that any person or body of persons empowered to take decision after ex post facto investigation into facts which would result in consequence affecting, inter alia, the right of any person, then in absence of any express exclusion of the principles of natural justice, such person or body would be under duty to at in accordance with such principles of natural justice "as may be applicable in the facts and circumstances of the given case". It was pointed out that no hard and fast rule could be laid down for general application to all cases, for, "the requirements of natural justice must depend on the circumstances of the case, the nature of the inquiry, the rule under which the Tribunal is acting, the subject-matter that is being dealt with etc." Notwithstanding the overriding consideration requiring the maintenance of discipline in educational institutions, the Court pointed out that the Tribunals functioning in such institutions cannot be freed from the necessity of acting in a manner which excludes reasonable possibility of unfair action being taken.
These principles enshrined in the monumental decision of this case have been consistently followed and applied by this Court. There can, therefore, be no cavil against the proposition that the University Authorities are not required in the disciplinary proceedings to strictly follow the technical rules of evidence enjoined by the Evidence Act and the decision of the High Court does not proceed on the violation of any such rule of evidence. It cannot be disputed that notwithstanding the settled view that the disciplinary forums functioning in the educational institutions are not tied down to procedural requirements of a trial in a judicial or quasi-judicial forum, like administering oath or examining witnesses in the presence of the accused person or' giving him facility of cross-examining the witnesses, the decision of such forum is nonetheless not sacrosanct if it is unfair or arbitrary. In proceeding to quash the decision of the Disciplinary Committee in the present case the High Court, as would appear from the quoted passage from the impugned judgment, acted on the finding that the opportunity of hearing given to the respondent was not fair and sufficient and that the inference drawn by the Committee was arbitrary. Three decisions of this Court were particularly relied in support of the proposition that a candidate who is the beneficiary of a wrongful at done by the University Staff must be presumed to have complicity in the wrongful at. These are Rahat Siddiqui v. Board of Intermediate m Secondary Education 1977 SCMR 213, Akhtar Ali v. The University of the Punjab 1979 SCMR 549 and Masood Pervaiz v. The Disciplinary Committee, University of the Punjab and others 1982 SCMR 1084.
9. After carefully examining the decisions on which reliance has been placed in support of the proposition advanced by the learned counsel for the appellant, we find that no such general proposition or rule of evidence that was laid down a presumption of guilt arises facto from the fact that the candidate is the beneficiary of the wrongful at. Before examining the decisions, however, it may be pointed out that in Samar Perviz v, Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education PLD 1971 SC 838, following weighty observations were made which are relevant for the discussion in hand:- "It is true that domestic Tribunals like a University or a Secondary Board of Education are free from the fetters and the formalities of a judicial trial, and while these can, consistently with the demands of justice, be ignored, it does not, by any means, follow that such domestic forums, while dealing with valuable rights and privileges of an individual, can snatch them away on conjectural grounds, even though such grounds may ostensibly appear to be very plausible but without any valid proof of their tangibility. However, morally convinced a Judge may feel as to the truth of a particular fact, unless there is legal proof of its existence, he cannot take it as proved. Conjectures and suspicion cannot take the place of proof. A Tribunal's decision must rest not on suspicion but upon legal grounds established by legal evidence. In the present case, apart from the fact that tampering with the records increased the appellant---s marks, and he is the beneficiary thereof, there is no evidence at all to connect him with bringing about that result. The mere fact that the marks had been inflated and the appellant stands to benefit from that Circumstance may convincingly lead one to a conjectural hypothesis that this was done at his instance or with his connivance, but it is not more than a mere conjecture."
In the first case relied upon the decision did not proceed solely upon the presumption propounded by the learned counsel. The facts were that the candidate's detailed marks certificate showed that he had secured 45 marks in Social Studies and 54 marks in Physics. Upon his application to the Board of Education for rechecking of his answer books in respect of the aforesaid to papers, it was revealed that the candidate's marks on the answer book in respect of one paper had been inflated from 45 to 70, although in the original award list they were shown as 45 marks. Nonetheless the revised award list and its counterfoil duly signed by the Sub-Examiner and Head Examiner mentioned 70 marks. It is important to note that the Sub-Examiner and Head-Examiner were required to explain the discrepancy and it was then disclosed that the Head-Examiner had sent for the Sub-Examiner and asked the latter to revise the answer of the appellant and to give marks on answer to a particular question of the said paper. In the course of inquiry it was found as a fact that the original answer to the particular question carried much less marks and had been replaced by another answer to the particular question written in the hand of the candidate upon which inflated marks were assigned. On this material the Disciplinary Committee that these acts were done in collusion by the candidate and the to examiners arrived at the final conclusion. Clearly, therefore, the facts of this case furnished sufficient material to find the accused candidate to be guilty of complicity, in so far as, he had direct hand in manipulating the fresh answer after the examination on which in-flated marks were given. As such, the case proceeded on tangible evidence of collusion in which' the candidate was found to have participated and the case did not proceed on presumptive inference. The case of Akhtar Ali also does not appear to have been decided by the Disciplinary Committee on the rule of presumption that the accused candidate was the beneficiary of the wrongful at on the part of the staff of the Uni--versity. This allegation was that he had forged a letter purporting to have been written by the University Authority to the Medical College. This was not a case of involvement of the University Staff in making or fabricating a false document. The conduct of the candidate and his explanations tendered on different occasions were examined to reach the conclusion of guilt against him. Therefore, this case is again distinguishable on facts. In the case of Masood Perveez also the charge of cheating against the student related to his replacing inner sheets of the official answer book in the examination. In the very nature of the allegations the candidate alone could be responsible and no member of the staff was alleged to have been involved in the at charged there was, therefore, no question of the at of a member of the staff to the benefit of the accused candidate, so as, to raise the presumption that it was done at his behest.
10. In contrast to the cases relied upon, in the case before us, as pointed above, no opportunity was given to the respondent to beg confronted with the members of the staff who were in charge of tabulation' work and were said to have been responsible for the inflation of marks, so that the Committee could have satisfied itself whether or not the respondent was in complicity with them in the wrongful at. Indeed positive request in this behalf which appears to us to be well-justified, was turned down by the Committee and even the names of these persons, were not disclosed to the respondent. In absence of this information, we feel the respondent was grossly handicapped in his defence to meet, the charge of being in complicity with unnamed and faceless members of the staff in the University in procuring the result in his favour. AS found in Samar Pervaiz's case the material placed before the Committee, in the absence of positive evidence to prove the respondent's participation in manipulating his result by forging the record, the matter remained in the realm of inference. The facts on record did not yield the irresitible inference that he was necessarily privy to the at, as the other hypothesis, which glares one in the face, was that a mistake had crept into the result on account of an arithmetical error deliberately or accidentally made by the functionary of the Board. If the Committee; had found itself agreeable to the suggestion of the respondent and called the responsible members of the staff and examined them in presence, of the respondent or had given him an opportunity to give an explanation to what they might have to say, they would have sufficiently satisfied the requirements of fair opportunity of hearing.
Unfortunately this course of action was not adopted and therefore, we have come to the` conclusion that the judgment of the High Court is unexceptionable.
11. In the result this appeal fails and is accordingly dismissed but with no order as to costs.