By this writ petition, a challenge is made to the minutes of 72nd meeting dated 02.01.2021 of the Board of Management of Babasaheb Bhim Rao Ambedkar University.
In the said meeting, a representation made by the petitioner was dealt with. The representation/complaint dated 12.03.2021 was received by the Board of Management on 13.03.2021. The complaint was in reference to Board meeting held on earlier occasion. It was attended by a representative of the Ministry whereas according to the petitioner, it was not permissible. The Board of Management dealt with the issue in reference to the convention of Ministry to send the representative of the nominated member to the University.
Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that a member nominated by the Ministry or member of the Board of Management alone could have attended the meeting. It could not have been by other than the members of the Board of Management and the nominated member. The conventions of the Ministry are running counter to the statutory provisions, thus the resolution taken in the 72nd meeting of the Board of Management deserves to be interfered.
We have considered the submissions made by learned counsel for the petitioner.
The petitioner is none-else but an Advocate. The public interest litigation by an Advocate has been deprecated by the Apex Court. In any case learned counsel for the petitioner was permitted to address the issue on merit. He could not refer to an element of public interest so as to maintain the public interest litigation. The representation of the petitioner has been dealt with by the Board of Management but merely for making a representation or rejection thereof, would not involve a public interest element. The public interest litigation is meant to serve the purpose of the public at large. It is stated that decision of the Board of Management affects the academics, thus is an issue of public interest.
It may be true that a decision of the Board of Management was made in the field of education. It cannot be that every such decision of the Board of Management would involve public interest.
We do not find an element of public interest in the resolution under challenge, thus merely for the reason that a decision of the Board of Management involves an issue pertaining to academics, the writ petition would be maintainable. The public interest litigation is to serve interest of the public and not for the settlement of individual issues.
Accordingly, we do not find this public interest litigation to be maintainable to challenge the resolution of the Board of Management in absence of an element of public interest.
Accordingly, the writ petition is dismissed.
Order Date :- 19.8.2021 Shubham .
(Suresh Kumar Gupta, J.) (Munishwar Nath Bhandari, A.C.J.)