Patna HC Refers MBBS Impersonation Expulsion to Division Bench After Conflicting Single-Judge Views
A Patna High Court single judge declines to follow a coordinate bench's reduced penalty in an MBBS impersonation case, sending the conflict to a Division Bench for authoritative resolution.
A writ petition filed by Arvind Kumar Mehta, a third-year MBBS student at Government Medical College, Bettiah, West Champaran, has produced an unusual outcome at the Patna High Court: Justice Harish Kumar, sitting singly, has referred the matter to a Division Bench after concluding that a prior coordinate bench decision — which softened the punishment for identical conduct — requires fresh consideration. The referral, ordered on 10 August 2026 in CWJC No. 6968 of 2025, turns on whether the Vice Chancellor of Aryabhatta Knowledge University had any real discretion to impose a lesser penalty than permanent expulsion once impersonation was proved, and whether the earlier single-judge ruling in Bhawesh Kumar Bhaskar v. Aryabhatta Knowledge University (CWJC No. 19657 of 2024) was decided without reference to a binding coordinate bench precedent.
The Impersonation Incident and University Proceedings
On 27 September 2024, during the third professional MBBS Part-I examination, invigilators at an Aryabhatta Knowledge University centre detected that Abhishek Kumar — himself a third professional MBBS Part-II student at the same college — was sitting the ENT paper in place of Arvind Kumar Mehta, Registration No. 19201209091, Session 2019–2024. The invigilator prepared a report on the day itself. The Centre Superintendent verified the incident, and the examination Observer filed a confidential report confirming impersonation. Abhishek Kumar was handed over to the local police; an FIR was registered as Jakkanpur PS Case No. 554 of 2024.
The University's Controller of Examinations issued a show-cause notice under Rule 7 of the Rules for Unfairmeans. Mehta replied, denying the allegation and requesting that proceedings be dropped. He was then directed to appear in person before the Unfairmeans Committee on 23 October 2024. At that hearing, he claimed illness had prevented him from sitting the paper and denied arranging a substitute. The Committee, after reviewing reports from the invigilator, Centre Superintendent, and Observer, found the charge proved.
The Vice Chancellor, acting on the Committee's recommendation, issued order Reference No. 5124 dated 12 November 2024, cancelling Mehta's admission and expelling him from the University. This was communicated to the Principal of Government Medical College, Bettiah, and to Mehta by Memo No. 1741 dated 20 November 2024.
The Coordinate Bench Ruling That Sparked the Conflict
Abhishek Kumar and four other students caught in the same examination cycle — all subjected to the same proceedings and the same punishment — challenged their expulsions in CWJC No. 19657 of 2024 and connected cases. A coordinate single bench, by order dated 19 September 2025, modified those penalties. That bench described permanent expulsion as “a death knell to the academic career of a young student.” It found the punishment disproportionate and held that the Vice Chancellor had failed to exercise his statutory discretion in a judicious and balanced manner, instead adopting a purely punitive approach with no reformative consideration.
Relying on Section 27(d) of the Aryabhatta Knowledge University Statute 2011, the coordinate bench reduced the penalty to expulsion for three years reckoned from the date of the Vice Chancellor's order. For one student, Vishal Kumar, who had already completed his MBBS course and one year of compulsory rotatory internship by 2024, the bench took a different course: it withheld conferral of his MBBS degree for two years and imposed a fine of Rs. 5 lakhs to be deposited before the two-year period expired.
The coordinate bench's central legal reasoning — reproduced at length in the present judgment — was that the Rules for Unfairmeans, being subordinate legislation framed under Section 27(f) of the Statute, could not fetter the Vice Chancellor's discretion under Section 27(d) to choose among a range of punishments. The bench drew support from Supreme Court decisions in Dharani Sugars and Chemicals Ltd. v. Union of India, (2019) 5 SCC 480, and BSNL v. TRAI, (2014) 3 SCC 222, on the effect of “without prejudice” clauses in statutes. It also found that the Vice Chancellor had mechanically accepted the Committee's recommendation without recording reasons showing independent application of mind.
How Each Side Argued Before Justice Harish Kumar
Senior Advocate Y.V. Giri, appearing for Mehta, pressed the parity argument squarely. Abhishek Kumar — the very person caught sitting in Mehta's place — had his expulsion reduced to three years by the coordinate bench. Giri contended that the student for whom the impersonator appeared could not logically receive harsher treatment than the impersonator himself. He relied on the Supreme Court's ruling in State of Uttar Pradesh v. Arvind Kumar Srivastava, (2015) 1 SCC 347, for the proposition that when a court grants relief to one set of identically situated persons, denying equivalent relief to others amounts to discrimination under Article 14 of the Constitution.
Giri also argued that the judgment in Bhawesh Kumar Bhaskar was not per incuriam because the earlier decision in Prashant Bharti v. Aryabhatta Knowledge University, AIR 2020 Pat 154, had never engaged with Section 27(d) of the Statute 2011 or the proportionality doctrine. The coordinate bench in Bhawesh Kumar Bhaskar had discussed both at length. Where the earlier ruling simply did not address the legal question, a later decision addressing it for the first time cannot be said to have ignored binding authority.
Senior Advocate P.K. Verma for the University took the opposite view. The petitioner had admitted impersonation in his own show-cause reply. Category 5.1(c) of the Rules for Unfairmeans prescribes one and only one punishment for the student on whose behalf an impersonator appears: cancellation of admission and expulsion. With the charge admitted and the procedure scrupulously followed — show-cause, personal hearing, video-graphed committee proceedings — there was no infirmity for the Court to correct. Verma relied on the Supreme Court's three-judge bench ruling in Board of High School and Intermediate Examination, U.P. v. Bagleshwar Prasad, AIR 1966 SC 875, which cautioned High Courts against interfering with domestic tribunal decisions of universities where no animus or malafide was alleged and the inquiry was fair.
Verma further submitted that Bhawesh Kumar Bhaskar was passed without notice of Prashant Bharti and was therefore per incuriam. The University had challenged the coordinate bench's order in Letters Patent Appeal No. 613 of 2026.
The State, represented by Government Pleader Prashant Pratap, supported the University on the per incuriam point and added that parity with the petitioners in CWJC No. 19657 of 2024 could not be claimed if that judgment itself lacked authority.
Justice Harish Kumar's Reasoning
Justice Harish Kumar found the facts against the petitioner essentially undisputed. The invigilator's report, the Centre Superintendent's verification, the Observer's confidential report, and — most significantly — Mehta's own show-cause reply, all confirmed impersonation. In his reply, Mehta had acknowledged that his friend Abhishek Kumar offered to sit the ENT paper on his behalf because Mehta feared failing due to inadequate preparation, and that Mehta had accepted the offer. The Court noted this admission explicitly.
On the legal conflict, Justice Harish Kumar declined to hold that Bhawesh Kumar Bhaskar was strictly per incuriam to Prashant Bharti, since the former had addressed Section 27(d) and proportionality — issues the latter had never considered. But he expressed significant reservations about the coordinate bench's conclusions on discretion. His central concern was that discretion presupposes a choice, and under the Rules for Unfairmeans, Category 5.1(c) prescribes only one punishment for proved impersonation by the student on whose behalf another person appeared. If there is only one prescribed outcome, there is no range from which the Vice Chancellor can select, and the finding in Bhawesh Kumar Bhaskar that the Vice Chancellor had failed to consider lesser deterrent penalties was, in Justice Kumar's view, effectively nullifying the rules that set punishment proportionate to the gravity of each category of offence.
The Court also rejected the suggestion that the Vice Chancellor had acted without application of mind. Acting consistently with statutory rules and on the recommendation of the Unfairmeans Committee, after a duly conducted inquiry, did not constitute non-application of mind unless the authority had ignored material on record, relied on extraneous matters, or reached a conclusion no prudent person could reach. None of those conditions was met here. Justice Kumar added that even accepting the coordinate bench's view that the Vice Chancellor could have adopted a reformative approach but did not, the proper remedy would have been to remit the matter to him for fresh consideration — not for the Court itself to substitute a three-year period for permanent expulsion.
Justice Kumar also drew attention to broader considerations: the conduct of a medical student who arranges a substitute for an examination has implications beyond academic misconduct. The Court quoted at length from a Punjab and Haryana High Court ruling in CWP No. 24547 of 2023 on the specific risks posed to patient safety and public health when medical professionals compromise on integrity during their education. It also referred to the Supreme Court's observations in Director (Studies), Dr. Ambedkar Institute of Hotel Management v. Vaibhav Singh Chauhan, (2009) 1 SCC 59, that “copying and cheating in examinations is like plague” and that leniency can have a “deleterious effect” on the educational system.
Why a Division Bench Reference Was Necessary
Justice Kumar framed the core question precisely: does uniformity require that the petitioner receive the same reduced punishment as Abhishek Kumar and the other students in Bhawesh Kumar Bhaskar, or does the Bhawesh Kumar Bhaskar ruling itself require reconsideration in light of Prashant Bharti and the statutory scheme? The two coordinate benches had reached divergent conclusions on whether the Vice Chancellor possessed genuine discretion once Category 5.1(c) applied. That divergence, Justice Kumar held, warranted resolution by a larger bench rather than quietus through a second single-judge order.
The Court recorded that it was proceeding after taking the consent of the Chief Justice, as required for referring a matter to a Division Bench. Since the University had already filed LPA No. 613 of 2026 challenging the Bhawesh Kumar Bhaskar order, Justice Kumar directed that the present writ petition be placed alongside that Letters Patent Appeal. The petitioner was directed to file a second copy of the writ petition along with counter-affidavit and any other petitions filed in the case. The present proceedings will abide by the final decision of the Division Bench.
Outcome
Justice Harish Kumar referred CWJC No. 6968 of 2025 to a Division Bench of the Patna High Court, with the consent of the Chief Justice, to resolve the divergence between the single-judge decisions in Bhawesh Kumar Bhaskar (CWJC No. 19657 of 2024, decided 19 September 2025) and Prashant Bharti (AIR 2020 Pat 154). The matter is to be heard along with LPA No. 613 of 2026, the University's Letters Patent Appeal against the coordinate bench ruling. The present case will be governed by whatever the Division Bench ultimately decides. No interim relief was recorded. The expulsion order of the Vice Chancellor dated 12 November 2024 therefore remains operative pending the Division Bench's ruling.