When any board conducts examinations in the discharge of its statutory function, it does not offer its “services” to candidates, the court said.
Students are not ‘consumers’ and universities are not ‘service providers’, so the latter cannot be dragged to consumer grievances forum for poor service, the Supreme Court (SC) has said. Neither can such forum tell the university to award a student a degree for appearing in an examination.
The court made these observations while allowing an appeal by Maharishi Dayanand University (MDU) challenging an order passed by the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) asking the varsity to award B.Ed degree to Surjeet Kaur.
In this context, the court held that “as a student Surjeet is neither a consumer nor is MDU rendering any service’’.
Her claim to a B.Ed. degree was like a direction to the university “to act contrary to its own rules’’, held a bench of justices BS Chauhan and Swatanter Kumar.
The present judgment comes as a result of another order from NCDRC. The forum had earlier directed a varsity to confer a degree on a student who had hidden the fact that she had appeared in two examinations in 1994-95, which isn’t permissible in law.
Explaining whether the Consumer Protection Act could be applied to solve disputes between students and universities, the apex court said when a Board conducts an examination in discharge of its statutory function, it does not offer its “services” to any candidate. Nor does an examinee hire or avail any service from the Board in return for a sum of money.
According to the court, a candidate who writes an examination conducted by the Board is a person who has undergone a course of study and is requesting the Board to test him and say whether he is fit to be declared as having completed the course.
This process does not amount to availing a service by a student. Instead, it is just a participation in a Board’s general examination to ascertain whether h/she is eligible and fit to be considered as having successfully completed the education course.
The examination fee paid is not the consideration for any service, but the charge paid for the privilege of participation, the court said.
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