A clerical error by a university the police were investigating left a Sub-Inspector working without salary for four years

Justices Vikram Nath, Augustine George Masih and Sandeep Mehta refused to send him to a civil court, gave the university three weeks to verify his degree and his employer four more to release the arrears.

The appellant took admission to a B.Tech in Civil Engineering at Manav Bharti University for the 2014–2018 session, cleared all eight semesters, and was issued detailed marks certificates for each of them, bonafide, migration and character certificates dated 14 September 2018, and a degree dated 15 October 2018 recording that he had passed the examination held in May 2018 in the first division. He was appointed Sub-Inspector in the State Taxes Department in Jammu and Kashmir. Since 2022 he has been working without being paid, because nobody will verify that his degree is real.

On 14 October 2026 a three-Judge Bench of the Supreme Court held that the reason nobody would verify it was a lapse by the university itself, that such a lapse cannot be visited on the student, and that what remained to be done needed no civil suit.

The letters that went unanswered

The Office of the Additional Commissioner, State Taxes (Administration and Enforcement), Kashmir, sought verification of his degree from the university by letters dated 19 May 2022, 22 September 2023 and 6 December 2023. By a further letter dated 11 July 2024 it recorded that the verification report was still awaited and that his appointment was subject to verification of his academic certificates.

The reason for the silence lay elsewhere. On a complaint about the alleged sale of degrees by the university, several cases were registered against its then administration and its records were seized by a Special Investigation Team, with the result that its students could not obtain their academic documents. On a letter dated 5 April 2022 addressed by the students to the Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court, a public interest writ petition was registered, and individual students' writ petitions, including the appellant's, were taken up with it. Pursuant to a High Court order of 1 August 2022, the State constituted a Document Verification Committee by notification dated 16 August 2022, chaired by the Superintendent of Police, Solan, and including the university's Administrator and the Secretary of the Himachal Pradesh Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Commission.

Two records, two sets of marks

On the appellant's application, the university reported by letter dated 26 July 2024 that he was enrolled for the 2014–15 session against seats allotted by the regulatory commission in a course approved by it, that his name was available in the Green Sheet and in the examination record, and that there was no dispute about the year of his admission and registration. It recorded, however, that his name had not been sent to the commission in the admission disclosure list and was not available in the approved list. By a later letter of 16 November 2024 its Registrar told his employer that he was a student at the university and forwarded a copy of the Green Sheet.

The State and the Director General of Police took the position that the Committee had examined his case, found his name in the Green Register for 2014–15 but not in the admission disclosure list for that year, and found that his seventh and eighth semester marks in the result gazette, 783/1300 and 920/1300, did not tally with the Green Sheet figures of 863/1300 and 946/1300 — so the documents could not be verified.

The High Court disposed of the public interest petition and the connected matters on 20 December 2024. It had permitted the students to inspect the Green Register and the Disclosure List at the university, and the university had placed their status on record in tabulated form, which most of the petitioners disputed. The High Court observed that it was not in a position to determine such disputed questions and left it open to the students to approach the competent court of jurisdiction.

What he asked for, and what he was offered

Counsel for the appellant put the grievance precisely. He had been admitted against the seats allotted to the university, had passed all the semester examinations and had been issued all his academic documents including the degree, and his name appears in both the Green Register and the examination record. His complaint was not non-issuance of documents at all — he had them — but the absence of verification, which his employer had been asking for since 2022. The omission of his name from the admission disclosure list was a lapse of the university over which he had no control and for which he cannot be penalised. And relegating him to a civil court after a public interest petition had remained pending for over two years would be burdensome and inequitable, particularly for a man who had been working without pay throughout.

What the respondents offered in answer was an account of why nobody could help him. The Committee's role, its chairman deposed, is confined to verification and the supply of documents to the university; the record available to it is in photocopies because the originals are with the trial courts handling the cases against the former administration; and it was never entrusted with the power to create, alter or correct any document of the university. The university, for its part, said its data could not be sent to the regulatory commission because of the marks mismatch. Between them, the effect was that the man who held a degree, marks certificates and a registration number could get no institution to confirm on paper what all of them agreed was true.

The university's own admission

In its counter affidavit before the Supreme Court the university said, in terms, that the appellant took admission against allotted seats for the academic session 2014–2018 under the stated admission and registration numbers; that he had cleared the examinations of all semesters from the first to the eighth and had been issued all detailed marks certificates as per the entry on the Green Sheet Register; that his name is duly reflected in that register, which is the primary internal record maintained by the university; and that “due to a clerical and inadvertent human error, by the previous administration of the University” his name was not included in the admission disclosure list sent to the commission. It separately recorded the mismatch in the seventh and eighth semester marks and said that because of the mismatch his data could not be sent to the commission and his documents could not be verified.

Because the affidavit disclosed that discrepancy, the Court by order dated 3 September 2026 directed the State to verify it and file an affidavit. The Superintendent of Police, Solan, who chairs the Committee, filed an additional affidavit dated 18 September 2026 confirming the enrolment in the student registration register for 2014–2015, the absence of the name from the disclosure list, and the same mismatch of marks. It added that the Committee's role is confined to verification and supply of documents to the university, that the record available with it is in photocopies and the originals are with the trial courts, and that it was not entrusted to create, alter or correct any document of the university.

What the Court held

The Court read paragraph 5 of the counter affidavit, which blamed the mismatch in marks for the failure to send his data, against paragraph 3, which blamed the university's own clerical error for the omission from the list, and found them irreconcilable: the admission disclosure list pertains to the session 2014–15, whereas the mismatch relates to the examinations of December 2017 and May 2018. The explanation in paragraph 3, which accords with the letter of 26 July 2024, was therefore accepted.

On that footing the affidavits and documents left no manner of doubt that the appellant was a bona fide student at the university, admitted against an allotted seat, who appeared in and cleared all his examinations. The omission of his name from the admission disclosure list is, on the university's own admission, a lapse on its part in which he had no role. Such a lapse cannot be visited with adverse consequences upon him, nor can it be a ground for withholding verification of his academic credentials.

The marks discrepancy did not help the respondents either. On the result gazette, the Green Sheet and the detailed marks certificates issued to him, his result in both semesters on either set of figures reflects as “pass”, and none of the respondents suggested otherwise. The discrepancy therefore does not touch his admission, his status as a student, or the fact that he passed the course; it stands established that he validly passed all the examinations and the entire course and was duly conferred the degree as per his entitlement.

The only issue that survived was which of the two sets of marks, both part of the university's own records, correctly reflects what he secured in those two semesters — and that, the Court held, calls for no more than verification of the university's result records. It does not depend on any evidence the appellant could lead, nor does it require the Committee to create or alter any record; it is in the nature of the verification responsibility entrusted to the Committee. For that limited exercise there was no warrant for relegating him to a court of competent jurisdiction.

The directions

The High Court's order of 20 December 2024 was set aside so far as it concerned the appellant. The State was directed to provide the result records of his seventh and eighth semesters, available with the Committee, to the university. On the basis of those records the university must issue him corrected detailed marks certificates for those two semesters along with such other documents as may be necessary in consequence, and must forward the verification report of his academic credentials to his employer, the Additional Commissioner, State Taxes (Administration and Enforcement), Kashmir, within three weeks. Upon receipt of the verification, the employer is expected to release all arrears of salary due to him, along with all consequential benefits, within a further four weeks. The appeal was allowed in those terms, with no order as to costs.